50 Fenchurch Street was given planning more than three years ago

Mace and Multiplex will send in bids before Christmas for the chance to build a new tower in the City of London designed by Eric Parry.

The 35-storey scheme at 50 Fenchurch Street was the first by Square Mile planners to be approved at a virtual meeting when it was given the green light in May 2020 at the height of the first covid-19 lockdown.

Others were asked to look at the job, believed to be worth £400m, but only Mace and Multiplex are working up bids.

50 Fenchurch Street by Eric Parry Architects

Source: DBox / Eric Parry Architects

The scheme will involve restoring a grade I listed tower at the new building’s base

Development manager on the job is Yard Nine, while the project manager is Third London Wall with Core Five the QS. Arup is the consultant on M&E and structures. Client on the scheme is 22 Bishopsgate owner AXA IM Alts which bought the site last summer.

The 50 Fenchurch Street scheme, opposite Parry’s 120 Fenchurch Street and a couple of blocks from his rejigged 1 Undershaft project, will provide a new home for the 500-year-old City livery company, the Clothworkers’ Company.

The 150m tall project would involve the demolition of the existing 1950s livery hall, designed by Herbert Austen Hall and refurbished by Donald Insall in the 1980s.

It will include a replacement underground livery hall topped by retail and 78,000 sq m of office space, a public roof garden and winter garden and a new public space based around a restored grade I church tower

The grade I tower, the Tower of All Hallows Staining, which was built around 1320, and the grade II Lambe’s Chapel Crypt, which dates from 1200, will both be restored under the plans.

The tower will incorporate a vertical green wall, bespoke ceramic cladding at ground level, a glazed podium and crafted glass detailing on the upper levels.

A winner is due to be announced by the spring with the scheme currently slated to complete in the first quarter of 2028.