and professional bandits such as The River Pirates, the Night Plunderers, the Scuffle-Hunters and the Mud Larks patrolled the waters and ports in search of a victim. Due to massive congestion on the river there was often around 1,800 boats moored in a space meant for 500. This thievery may have influenced the decision to hire Daniel Asher Alexander - who was the principal architect of both Dartmoor Prison and Maidstone Prison - to design The London Dock, as well as act as the principle surveyor. "The Great Tobacco Warehouse" was also known as the Queen's Warehouse; hence, the furnace at its centre earned the moniker of "The Queen's Tobacco Pipe" as it was used to burn defective tobacco and other unusable goods as well as those which had not had their duty paid. John Timbs' Curiosities of London (1867) records: Redevelopment In 1990 the structure was converted into a shopping centre at a cost of £47 million; it was the intention of the developers to create the "Covent Garden of the East End", however the scheme was unsuccessful and it went into administration. This is likely due, in part, to the fact that Tobacco Dock is not in a major retail area and has only moderately good public transport access. The designer was Arup and the contractor was Harry Neal Ltd. From the mid-1990s the building was almost entirely unoccupied, with the only tenant being a sandwich shop, and a plan to convert it into a factory outlet did not come to fruition. In 2003, English Heritage placed Tobacco Dock on the Buildings at Risk Register to prevent inappropriate development and decay due to neglect, although at this time it was already a listed building. A meeting was arranged in 2004 to discuss the building with its owners, the Kuwaiti investment company Messila House, to ensure the survival of the historic structure. An English Heritage spokesman commented: "we see Tobacco Dock as a future priority because it is too large and important a site to be left standing empty. It is one of the most important buildings in London and if brought back into use it would reinvigorate the whole area". In 2005 the owners announced that they were working on a mixed-use scheme for Tobacco Dock which could incorporate a four-star hotel, shops, and luxury apartments. As of July 2012, the upper areas of the complex were still