Olympia 2nd February 2025

Olympia 2nd February 2025

Olympia entrance

Olympia Hyatt Hotel

Conference Centre entrance

Olympia Music Venue

Music Venue looking towards stage

Olympia Theatre – looking towards proscenium

Olympia Offices

Glass canopy: restaurants, looking East

The Olympia project is approaching completion after over seven years of planning and construction, and has been holding ‘sneak peeks’ for locals to see in and around selected parts of the building in recent weeks. We were fortunate enough to join one of these tours.   As has been fairly longstanding policy, no independent photos were allowed, but a set of Olympia’s own photos were provided instead. We saw many of the views shown here.

The scale of the whole development is immense as we’ve said before – remembering that we didn’t go anywhere near the existing (open) parts of the site – the main exhibition halls, areas such as the Pillar Hall, or the Maclise road car park – AKA Hyatt hotel and school, or indeed the Hotel being built above the Hammersmith Road frontage.

The most complete part of the building that is not yet open is the music venue, billed as The Olympia Music Hall , cleaned and ready for imminent fit-out by the tenant AEG – the same organisation that runs the existing O2 Arena in Greenwich. The capacity is in excess of 4000, slightly more than the Hammersmith Apollo, but the number here is an ‘all standing’ one with a relatively small gallery and VIP area – shown with a couple of people standing in it in the photo looking towards the stage. The equivalent ‘standing’ for the Apollo is 5300.

By contrast, the 1500-capacity theatre is the least well advanced of all the areas, though right next to the music venue, simply because it was started last in the programme, and had to be built entirely from the ground up. Photos show the underside of the raked seating structure (in white), and the size and substantial height of the backstage area can clearly be seen. In fact so cavernous is the backstage area, that they unusually plan to build a couple of floors of office/theatre administration on top of the fly-tower. There’s an orchestra pit provided for this conventional proscenium-style auditorium, allowing for musicals. When the shell/core construction is complete, this will be fitted out by well-known CharcoalBlue consultants, for the selected operator Trafalgar Entertainment.

Interlinking the back of these venues, and the offices / conference centre is a substantial open elevated walkway, the size of a road, which sits above and between the two existing exhibition halls, and leads to the glass canopy restaurants (pictured), and then eventually to the large stairs and escalators down to Olympia Way and the railway. There was some discussion about a huge video wall – or rather video ceiling – along this walkway, which given the contrast between the open Eastern end, and the somewhat subterranean feel to the other end, will be welcome. The glass canopy area is open, and the part-covered roofs of the restaurants are also planned to be used for further hospitality, though a number of us, on a cold February morning tour, felt that here, optimism had triumphed over the realities of the British weather.

Olympia Sneak Peek

We had the opportunity to see an office floorplate (pictured above), which was as unremarkable as office floorplates typically are, apart from it’s size and the vista from it’s windows and balcony, on which were also able to stand. There’s a excellent uninterrupted view all the way across to Crystal Palace and the South Downs, via Earls Court’s Empress State Building from these private (for the office’s use) balconies, which will surely be a big pull factor.

Transport

A couple of transport planning-related issues have raised their heads in recent weeks, given the expected 12 million visitors a year, equivalent to 33,000 daily. 

Firstly locals, and the council are waking up to the reality that two substantial evening-orientated entertainment venues are about to open in a largely residential area. There’s a current local parking consultation (until 14th March) which we listed in our Weekly email earlier this month. 

Secondly, and as we’ve said before, although the PTAL is on the face of it a very good 6a, the rating belies the fact that aspects of it may be historic from a time when the District Line ran much more often. The mood music from TfL does not suggest that Olympia branch service is likely to be restored, as it was sacrificed for the Wimbledon branch several years ago when Olympia was in the doldrums, and those that use that branch will be familiar with the overload it still experiences.

Olympia are therefore working with the Overground as the most obvious source of increased capacity, and though Overground doesn’t tend to figure greatly in the imagination locally – there being just the one line – it is well connected to Clapham Junction and all of north London via Willesden junction, and of course the tube at West Brompton – it makes a lot of sense to increase service frequency and capacity.  There is a further issue with the longstanding lack of accessibility at Olympia station – a local campaign has been running for a while to get this addressed.   Bus services (routes 27, 23, and 10) have been disappointingly curtailed in recent years in favour of a barely used cycle lane.  Overall, the current provision feels a little marginal for the proposed footfall.

Conclusion

Olympia is set to be a quite extraordinary cultural and commercial centre in the next year or so, and standing on one of it’s balconies looking a mile south, one can feel the very obvious contrast to what is proposed at Earls Court.  It’s a shame that the transport facilities cannot be swapped to properly reflect the need here.