Gunning for victory

Lovers of the beautiful game breathed a sigh of relief and their hearts started beating a little faster when news broke that Highbury Stadium, home to Arsenal Football Club since 1913, was to be converted into luxury homes. Fans of ‘the Gunners’ had been concerned that the listed Art Deco building would be demolished once the new Emirates stadium was built less than a mile away. Instead, Arsenal’s management team decided to convert it into individual studio, one, two and three-bedroom apartments and penthouses, complete with a fitness centre, swimming pool, shops, underground car park and 24-hour concierge service, with the famous Highbury pitch being landscaped into impressive courtyards and gardens by award-winning designer Christopher Bradley-Hole. Construction giant Robert McAlpine was given the contract for restoration of the stand fascias and construction of the apartments.

Bob Ruler, md of contract kitchen specialist BK Kitchens, and Karen Ferguson, sales and marketing director, regarded the unusual, large-scale project as a rather special business opportunity. “It must be the only residential development in the world built around a football pitch, keeping the existing fascia of the east and west stands,” says Bob. And, as Robert McAlpine was planning to build quickly, the challenge for the kitchen installer was to fit an impressive 720 kitchens in 8 months. “Very few kitchen companies in Britain could do that,” says Bob. Having worked with procurement agency, Vision Four, on another fast-moving site in the past, BK’s speed of fit was well known. Bob says that four or five companies were pitching for this £4m order, so just how did BK secure the deal? Bob insists that price was not the major deciding factor. “We won on quality of service, a very fast programme and the ability to do the job,” he says. “People come to us for unique designs: with the ranges and innovations of Nolte, we can give something a little different.”

Featuring clean-lined and contemporary Nolte furniture, each kitchen at ‘The Stadium, Highbury Square’ is open to a living area, so an uncluttered design with plenty of streamlined storage was essential. “We wanted to create a blend of earthy and neutral tones, which are easy to live with and natural-looking to blend in with the pitch views and landscaping,” explains Karen, who had the challenging task of managing 13 different colour options in over 250 different kitchen designs, in apartments ranging in price from £325,000 to over £1m. “The development is a refurbishment, so most plots are individual, with different specifications from penthouse and pitch-facing through to smaller studio apartments,” she explains. “The whole planning and design stage took two years.” Kitchen installation was completed at the beginning of this year, and the entire development, including landscaping, is due to finish by the summer.

So having been, in Bob’s words, “extremely busy over the last three years”, what’s next for BK Kitchens? Bob is honest about the current state of the housing market and its effect on his company. “Yes, the market has slowed down. Although we’re still holding plenty of orders, nobody is calling them off because nobody is doing any work.” So how does he plan to get through these tough times? “It’s very hard. We’re battening down the hatches, keeping everything very cost-effective with no wastage,” he says.

Meanwhile, there’s another string to his bow. BK has recently launched its “b koncept” range of furniture for the specialist social housing market, designed to meet the public sector need for quality materials and kitchen units that will retain their appearance even with heavy domestic use. With prices from £2,500–£5,000, the furniture is manufactured in the UK for BK, and has the potential to widen the current BK customer base.

And while construction may have slowed, Bob and Karen are still busy tendering for new projects. “We’ve just secured two large premier sites in east London, totalling 2,200 units,” says Bob. “Because of market conditions, developers are concerned that when the market picks up, they will need a supplier with guaranteed on-time and in-place installation, fast.” And that’s where BK Kitchens scores.