US behemoth set to move in to area by 2021
Facebook is the latest US tech giant to be lured to King’s Cross with the firm snapping up more than 600,000 sq ft of office space in the area.
Lendlease has begun work on the scheme to build Google’s new European headquarters on a strip of land next to the railway tracks running into and out of the mainline station.
Laing O’Rourke’s piling arm, Expanded, has begun piling work on the £650m scheme which has been designed by US-Danish architect BIG and Heatherwick Studio, the firm behind the failed plans for a Garden Bridge across the river Thames in the middle of London.
Google will now be joined by Facebook after the firm bought 611,000 ft² of office space across three buildings in Kings Cross – over 15% of the total commercial space being developed in the area.
The buildings, 11 and 21 Canal Reach, designed by Bennetts Associates, and P2 on Cubitt Square, drawn up by former Google architect Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, are among the last major sites to be redeveloped at the long-running regeneration scheme.
The Bennetts buildings will have 10 and 12 floors of office space respectively, as well as 42,000 ft² of landscaped roof gardens and terraces.
Contractors have yet to be chosen for the work but firms which have carried out jobs in the area include Bam, working on Heatherwick’s Coal Drops Yard retail scheme in King’s Cross, and Kier while bust firm Carillion also carried out a number of jobs at the site.
Facebook wants to move in to its new offices by 2021 and Rob Cookson, head of global real estate at Facebook, said: “We chose King’s Cross because it has considerable expansion opportunities, great transportation access and is part of a vibrant community.”
In total, Facebook’s new offices will contain over 6,000 workstations and be double the space Facebook currently occupies at its addresses in Rathbone Place in the West End and Brock Street close to Euston Square.
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