Current Lansdowne House was built in 1980s and has heritage stretching back to 1760s
Three firms are in the running for a £200m scheme to redevelop a building on London’s Berkeley Square which was property developer Stanhope’s office for several years in the 1980s and 90s.
AHMM is behind the proposal to replace Lansdowne House, built in 1987 by Chapman Taylor, with a new commercial building that was OK’d by Westminster council nearly two years ago.
The Chapman Taylor building at 57 Berkeley Square replaced one built in the 1930s and is a post-modern office block that occupies the whole of the southern end of the square and stretches back for a block towards Piccadilly.
Mace and Multiplex, which had its London office on Berkeley Square when it was rebuilding Wembley stadium, have been joined on the shortlist by Laing O’Rourke, which has tended to shy away from competitive tendering for big London commercial deals in recent years. “It’s interesting they’re on this one,” one bidder said. “We haven’t seen too much of them recently.”
Lansdowne House is being upgraded to feature 10 storeys of office space running across 225,000 sq ft.
Development manager CO-RE, which is also behind the stalled ITV studios job on London’s South Bank as well as the 120 Fleet Street scheme that is said to be too close to call, said the scheme will have 14,000 sq ft of retail and restaurants on the ground floor while public realm improvements are also planned. The new project will include 480 cycle spaces with showers, lockers and changing facilities.
Others working on the project include QS Alinea, structural engineer AKT II, building services engineer Aecom and planning consultant Gerald Eve.
The project site occupies the former garden of the original Lansdowne House, now known as the Lansdowne Club and standing just across the road, which was designed by Robert Adam in the 1760s.
Its occupants included former prime ministers including William Pitt the Younger as well as Gordon Selfridge, founder of the department store.
Its first owner Lord Shelburne is said to have drafted the peace treaty with America in 1782 in what is now its cocktail bar. He was created first Marquess of Lansdowne, from which both buildings now take their name.
The building was partially demolished to make way for a road and was converted into a private members’ club in the 1930s, with members including fashion designer Paul Smith, artist Beryl Cook and chef and heritage campaigner Loyd Grossman.
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