Multiplex set to win race for £200m makeover of 1980s City block

A £200m scheme to overhaul a 30-year-old building at the Broadgate campus in the City of London is heading the way of Multiplex, Building understands.

The firm is set to sign on the dotted line for the job at One Exchange Square, which is also known as 175 Bishopsgate as the existing post-modern building, which was designed by SOM, runs along a hundreds of yards stretch of the thoroughfare.

Multiplex is understood to have beaten Lendlease and Skanska to the job which will see a 13-storey building by Fletcher Priest built on the eastern border of Exchange Square and the existing building refurbished and extended.

Designed by SOM, the current building was put up between 1987 and 1991 and its Bishopsgate frontage is described in planning documents as “dark and lacking engagement with the street”.

The documents add: “By using over 90% of the existing structure and retaining a portion of the existing envelope material, the redevelopment of the building into a new high quality workplace, coupled with high-efficiency plant and passive solar shading design, is intrinsically positive from a whole life carbon perspective. The building’s frontage onto Bishopsgate is refurbished and upgraded, presenting a modernised face to the City.”

Under the proposals, the route connecting the Bishopsgate part of the building with Exchange Square, called Exchange Arcade, will be widened while external terraces will be added along with space for nearly 800 bikes.

Overall, the 13-storey scheme will feature 39,500 sq m of workspace plus a further 2,000 sq m of retail.

LaSalle Investment Management is acting on behalf of the applicant, Malaysian fund manager Permodalan Nasional Berhad.

Others working on the project include development manager M3 Consulting, cost consultant Core 5 and structural engineer Heyne Tillett Steel. Eckersley O’Callagan is façade engineer while SWECO is services, transport and fire engineer.

Another SOM building at the Broadgate campus is also set to be given a revamp under plans drawn up by Piercy & Co for British Land,

The building at 1 Appold Street backs on to the grade II-listed Liverpool Street Station shed and the Exchange Square outdoor area.

Multiplex, Lendlease and Skanska are all eyeing the job along with Mace and Sir Robert McAlpine. A shortlist of three for the £220m job is due after Easter with a winner set for the autumn.

Meanwhile, Mace, which last year pipped Multiplex to the £350m Justice Quarter contract elsewhere in the Square Mile, has been formally appointed by the City of London to the work.

It has been in a PCSA for the past 12 months but has now signed up for the job, designed by Eric Parry.

The Salisbury Square development, which will replace an entire city block in a conservation area between Whitefriars Street and Salisbury Court on the south side of Fleet Street, will include a new headquarters for City of London Police, a courts complex and a commercial building to help fund the project.