The converted turn to preaching the message : The AGENTS : DOCKLANDS A SPECIAL REPORT

The up-turn in the commercial property scene has not been confined to C anary Wharf. David Lawson reports on the growing market

Mark McAlister's first trip to Canary Wharf was not a raging success. He was turfed off the Light Railway over a mix-up with tickets. "It did not leave much of an impression," he says.

Even worse, the agent was escorting Chase Manhattan Bank executives who were then, not surprisingly, less than eager to move in. Yet two years later Mr McAlister decamped from the City to set up office here.

Peter Bibby also watched as the Docklands dream seemed to sour from the safety of a City base but now sits in the same office high in the silver tower.

McAlister is with Richard Ellis while Bibby is at Jones Lang Wootton, two of the top UK property consultants. That these rival agencies should join forces is less significant than the fact that two ambitious young surveyors should volunteer to take on the job. A few years ago, it would have been the equivalent of a posting to Mongolia.

Some might put the new enthusiasm down to expediency. Like lawyers, agents are paid to wax lyrical over clients they might just as easily condemn. Mr McAlister disagrees.

"The point is that that things have changed out of all recognition in the last couple of years," he says. "The economy is growing, City space is tight, and most importantly, the transport system in Docklands is now in."

The problem now is getting that message across. Outsiders have to be cajoled, enticed and even dragged into the Isle of Dogs to prove that it is not on the far side of the moon.

Mr McAlister believes this problem is fading. Every major business sector stretching from finance through oil to the media is sniffing around in anticipation of completion of the Jubilee line in 1998, he says.

The European Medicines Evaluation Agency has already chosen Canary Wharf as its base. So has the Personal Investment Authority, both indicating that national and international agencies see this as a headquarters location rather than a branch-office backwater. Meanwhile, existing tenants like Morgan Stanley and BZW are negotiating to take another 1m sqft of space.

"There is still a long way to go, but we have broken through some crucial barriers of ignorance," agrees Mr Bibby.

The remarkable thing about this born-again evangelism is that it remains strong among those who now have little contact with Canary Wharf. Robert Dean of Savills was around at the conception, when Michael Klemm of Credit Suisse First Boston enthused overmoving the bank to the site of an old banana shed in the Isle of Dogs.

"Canary Wharf was always feasible - providing it could be built quickly enough and there was good access," says Mr Dean.

Savills was supplanted as adviser but brought back in when the developer went down. It then achieved what appeared the impossible, persuading the administrators to look for even more millions to be ploughed in rather than let the scheme go bust.

That only happened because two big lettings to the Mirror Group and London Regional Transport persuaded the banks that tenants were interested, says Mr Dean.

That also brought Mr McAlister full circle. He was advising LRT, and the changes since he was turfed off the train persuaded him to make his own move into Docklands. Now all it needs is the for the rest of the world to catch up.