Jim Armitage: Remembering Harry Hyams - a property developer who left his mark

Talk to any London property developer of a certain age, and they’ll tell you a story about Harry Hyams.

The Centre Point skyscraper tycoon who died on Friday, aged 87, not only changed the West End silhouette for ever, but left an indelible mark on those who worked with him.

One successful 60-something developer tells me how, in his days as a young agent 35 years ago, he was trying to find tenants for Hyams’s building in the then-rundown district of Borough.

Typically, Hyams was demanding 50% more rent than anyone else in the area. The agent couldn’t get a bite, but Hyams wouldn’t drop his price.

Eventually Unilever sniffed around for its Bird’s Eye HQ. The frozen-peas men visited four times but balked at the outrageous rent.

The agent begged Hyams again to reconsider, only to be told this: “If they’ve been around four times, they want it, and they’ll pay.

“The extra £5 a foot I’m asking is the three salaries at most for Bird’s Eye, and they’ll be putting 400 people in that building.

“So what we’re seeking is nothing to them. Offer three months rent free, to show how generous I am, but don’t drop the price.” Unilever paid up.

As my developer friend says: “I learned a lot from Harry.”

Hyams is probably best remembered for his ruthless negotiating around Centre Point.

Controversy dogged the brutalist tower long before the first pile was even driven.

The developer wanted to get around London’s height restrictions to build a 35-floor tower.

He offered the council top dollar for the land, plus a large chunk of the site back for public use as roads. This offer bent — some said broke — the rules curbing the “sale” of planning consents and resulted in the monolith, now Grade 2-listed, that towers alone over that Victorian, red-brick district to this day.

Hyams then refused to let the building out floor-by-floor, demanding one tenant for the whole tower.

Unlike in Borough, his stubbornness left it empty for 16 years. No matter for Hyams — the property’s value snowballed.

It was a scandal that still hangs over the property world in the form of taxes punishing developers for having vacant office space.