Eight properties to be redeveloped to provide ‘immersive experience’ for up to 600 visitors at a time
Matt Architecture is working on plans to bring a major new visitor attraction to London’s Leicester Square featuring a giant Piccadilly Circus-style LED screen, Building’s sister title Building Design can reveal.
The LSX Leicester Square project would redevelop eight existing properties next to the square’s Odeon cinema to create a 10-storey “immersive” experience with four basement levels.
A full planning application for the scheme is set to be submitted to Westminster council this summer following a series of public engagement events held this spring.
The scheme’s developer Soho Estates, which started acquiring the site’s buildings in the 1990s including the Burger King located at the corner of the square and Bear Street, said it wanted to “transform this corner of Leicester Square, unlocking its full potential and establishing it as a destination that plays an active role in the life of the Square”.
The project is yet to sign an occupier and the exact nature of the proposed visitor attraction is currently unclear, although it would span 30,000sq ft of floorspace over three double-height floors and have capacity for up to 600 people at a time.
Soho Estates said the scheme would create a “world class” venue designed to support “next-generation visitors experiences”, adding that its aim was to “address a clear gap in the West End for large, high-quality venues of this kind”.
The building would also include a large food court on the ground floor, a rooftop restaurant with views over the square, new shop fronts on Bear Street and Cranbourn Street and a four-storey-tall rotating LED screen facing the square.
The screen, which would cover much of the building’s facade, would be used to support film premieres at the square’s three main cinemas and also display advertising and cultural content.
Soho Estates have promised that the content, brightness and hours of operation would be “carefully controlled” in line with planning conditions agreed with Westminster city council.
Matt Architecture, which also designed Soho Estates’ headquarters in Soho,completed in 2022, is understood to have been working on the LSX project for several years.
The practice was founded in 2011 by Matt White, a former architect at Foster + Partners in the 1990s who became one of the original partners at Make Architects and the principal of the latter’s Abu Dhabi and Dubai offices.
Others working on the project team include project manager DML, planning consultant Newmark, structural engineer Tier Consult, facade consultant Thornton Tomasetti, environment consultant Cundall and townscape consultant The Townscape Consultancy.
Images included in a public consultation launched last weekend show a series of undulating facades designed to resemble a stage curtain in homage to Leicester Square’s theatrical heritage, with a main entrance building located on Cranbourn Street.
Six of the site’s buildings were built in the second half of the 20th century and are described by Soho Estates as “dated and inefficient and fail to reflect the importance of this globally recognised location”.
However, two buildings – neighbouring an Orms-designed corner block scheme at 1-4 Berar Street which is currently under construction – date to the 1840s. Concept images suggest these buildings would be refaced, although it is unclear if the underlying structures would be demolished.
A development value for the project has not been disclosed, although it will be privately funded and is expected to create ”hundreds” of jobs during construction.
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