Millennium Dome. The tent was the show home.
The Millennium Dome became a national joke. The land underneath it became some of London's most valuable property. We spent a year arguing about the wrong thing.
THE GIST ON MILLENNIUM DOME: "Part 1: The Deal"
What actually failed?
The Millennium Dome was the giant white tent the government built in Greenwich to celebrate the millennium. Today, it is the O2. It cost £789 million and needed 12 million visitors to break even. About six million came. It closed on New Year's Eve and became a national joke.
But two things occupied that site: the tent and the ground it stood on. The exhibition could fail while the property underneath became more valuable.
How did the land become valuable?
The Greenwich Peninsula was a dead gasworks. The ground was so polluted that nobody wanted to build there. The public paid to make it safe, extended the Jubilee line to it and put the most talked-about building in the country on it for a year.
When the exhibition closed, the contents belonged to the sponsors. In 2002, the Dome and 170 acres around it went to a developer backed by an American billionaire, with no money up front. The public was promised a share of future development profits.
What was the Dome really selling?
The Dome was a show home. You build one to bring people to somewhere they would otherwise ignore and help them imagine what could be there. The public built the show home, got a year of looking at the James Bond boat, me included, and handed it over.
We are brilliant at knowing what things cost, but hopeless at knowing what they are worth. We argued about the bill for the tent while the ground underneath it became some of the most valuable in London. Where that value went is the story of part two.
Which deserved more attention?
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Quick answers
What is the Millennium Dome now?
It is now the O2, on the Greenwich Peninsula.
Why does Huw call it a land deal?
Public spending cleaned up and connected the site. The Dome and surrounding land were then transferred for a promised share of future profits rather than money up front.
See you on the next one.
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