EcoWorld Ballymore recently released a new collection of two-bedroom apartments at their flagship Embassy Gardens development in Nine Elms, South London.

This comes just a few weeks after Property Investor Today visited one of the Embassy Gardens buildings as part of a wider feature on Nine Elms, the capital’s largest regeneration project and the last part of the South Bank to undergo significant transformation.

The new collection of apartments, designed by Benningen Lloyd, have prices starting at £789,000 and aim to offer residents luxury living in an emerging riverside neighbourhood.

All of the new apartments available are in Legacy 1 – a Phase Two building overlooking the new US Embassy and the landscaped gardens in Embassy Square.

To celebrate the new apartments in Legacy 1, Embassy Gardens hosted a Summer Open House event on Saturday August 31, where guests were given a tour of the individually designed show apartments followed by a cocktail masterclass at Darby’s – an oyster bar and grill owned and operated by well-known Irish chef Robin Gill. 

The first phase of the Embassy Gardens development is already complete and fully occupied, while Phase Two completions are underway. Once complete, the development will provide almost 2,000 new homes for Londoners.

The new apartments are influenced by Soho loft-style living, with the open-plan design aiming to create a ‘sense of space and natural light’ which will ‘flood through the floor to ceiling glass windows’. The décor, meanwhile, focuses on light-coloured oak, marble and black granite, with high-quality finishes in every apartment.

However, the Legacy 1 building’s standout feature is undoubtedly the Sky Pool, a world-first in swimming pool design that allows residents to swim between two buildings at a height of 10 storeys. The 22-storey tower is also home to Darby’s, which is set to open another exclusive restaurant on the 10th storey Sky Deck for residents.

The area is attempting to become a new commercial and lifestyle hotspot for Londoners, with beauty and lifestyle concept Linnaean and a soon-to-open cycle bar, alongside the upcoming arrival of cocktail bar The Alchemist. Nine Elms is already home to a number of trendy cafes and restaurants, as well as a Sainsbury’s Local and a Waitrose.

All residents of Legacy 1 will also have exclusive membership of the private EG:LE club, with access to a cinema, gym and spa facilities.

Some have criticised the regeneration project for being too corporate and soulless, and aimed only at wealthy demographics, with complaints also made against the number of high-rise skyscrapers taking over the skyline in this part of the capital.

But those behind the developments believe they are having a transformative effect.

Dato’ Teow Leong Seng, president and chief executive of EcoWorld International, said of the new collection of apartments: “The release of these new apartments is a real milestone for Phase Two which not only marks the next stage of this ground-breaking development’s journey, but also gives more people the opportunity to take part in the area’s transformation.”

EcoWorld Ballymore is a collaboration between EcoWorld Development Group and Ballymore, founded in Dublin by Sean Mulryan in 1982. While Ballymore Group was responsible for Phase One of the Embassy Gardens development, Phase Two is a joint venture between two of the biggest development firms operating in London. It recently saw the topping out of its botanical development, Wardian London, in Canary Wharf, and is also responsible for the riverside development, London City Island, in Poplar.

Phase Three of the Embassy Gardens development, which is also under construction, includes One Embassy Gardens – the scheme’s flagship commercial building, with space pre-let to Penguin Random House UK and DK Publishing – and EG:HQ, a 13-storey, 217,000 sq. ft office space, which was recently submitted for planning.