Dutch developer has lined up McAlpine as main contractor oin £150m office in London’s West End

John F Hunt has won the first phase of work on a £150m office scheme in London’s West End set to built by Sir Robert McAlpine for Dutch developer Edge.

Hunt has picked up a £4m deal for demolition, soft‑strip and enabling works at 125 Shaftesbury Avenue.

It will also carry out asbestos removal while its demolition work includes taking down the roof and level‑10 structures and removing an existing reinforced‑concrete staircase down to level 7. Hunt is expected to be on site for the rest of this year.

125

How the completed scheme at Shaftesbury Avenue will look

McAlpine beat Bovis last autumn to the £150m job on Charing Cross Road, which is being handled by Luxembourg-based client VREF Shaftesbury Avenue – a joint venture between Edge and Mitsubishi Estate.

Architect DSDHA’s scheme will modernise the brick-faced office block built in 1982 which is currently vacant above the ground floor.

The project will increase the building’s height from 11 to 13 floors and provide 250,000sq ft of workspace, including workspace at the ground level, rooftop terraces, end-of-trip facilities and cycle parking.

The building, which was previously used by tech giant Facebook, borders two of London’s busiest thoroughfares, Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road, which Hunt said “requires meticulous planning to manage public interface and maintain pedestrian safety throughout the works”.

It also sits next door to the Phoenix Theatre and to protect its ongoing performances, Hunt said noise‑restricted working windows and carefully controlled methodologies will be enforced.

Hunt’s operations director Troy Robertson said: “This is a logistically complex scheme in one of the most demanding urban environments in the country. Our team has developed a highly detailed delivery strategy that balances safety, sustainability and sensitivity to our neighbours while enabling the client’s ambitious redevelopment plans for 125 Shaftesbury Avenue.”

Edge is expecting 125 Shaftesbury Avenue, which it is set to rename, to be completed by autumn 2028. A third scheme, Edge Liverpool Street, designed by AHMM and due to be built by Mace, is due to finish the following summer.

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