Hines and Lipton Rogers have lodged revised plans for their £1 billion office and residential towers redevelopment of 18 Blackfriars Road, a former Sainsbury's site in Southwark.
The revisions, which remove a floor from the office tower and cut back on floor space, follow talks with Historic England and Southwark Council officers and take on board Hines's subsequent acquisition of the Mad Hatter pub and 1 Stamford Street, two Victoria Buildings at the site.
The plans are now for the part demolition to the rear of 1 and 3 – 7 Stamford Street together with the erection of a ground plus three-storey podium comprising retail, leisure, office, education, gallery, library and assembly room uses, as well as two levels of basement for servicing, plant, car and cycle parking plus pit access within a partial basement at level three. There will be two residential buildings of 22 and 40 storeys above podium, and an office building of 44 storeys above podium. There will also be improvements to the existing public house, landscaping at ground and podium levels.
The key amendments include a reduction in height of the office building from199.28m to 195.50m, a reduction of 3.78m or one storey, from 45 storeys to 44 storeys above podium. There will be a reduction of the lower north-east "massing bustle of the office to avoid oversailing" 1 Stamford Street and the Mad Hatter Public House and Hotel. It will lead to a reduction of 656 square metres.
At 1 Stamford Street and 3 – 7 Stamford Street existing staircases within both buildings abd the chimney in 1 Stamford Street will be retained. The glazed link between the office building and the Listed Buildings over Hatters Yard will be removed as will the proposed Juliette Balconies at the rear of 1 Stamford Street.
Changes have also been incorporated to the basement levels to accommodate a revised number of long-stay cycle parking spaces following discussions with LBS Highways from 3,092 to 2,933.
Hines, the global real estate investment, development and property manager, first lodged its Foster + Partners-designed plans in August of last year.
Working with consultant Lipton Rogers Developments it is proposing a major development for 18 Blackfriars Road, close to the River Thames, the Tate Modern, National Theatre and the Southbank Centre.
The two residential buildings will provide over 400 homes on site, including 40% on-site affordable homes.
There will now be a circa 820,000-square-foot office building that aims to "provide a new form of architecture, departing from the traditional flat tower office building". It intends to move away from an all-glass design and the office has "a series of bustles" gradually reducing in size to the top. There will be 20,000 square feet of affordable workspace for local businesses.
There is an existing consent on the site for two towers, the tallest of which was 184.2 metres.
The proposed office tower at 195.50 metres will be more than 100 metres shorter than London's tallest building, The Shard, - also in the Borough of Southward , which stands at 310 metres .
A podium at the base of the buildings will include retail and food outlets, office and residential amenities, cultural and performance facilities, educational spaces, as well as other flexible uses. At ground level, three interconnected spaces – the Rotunda, Hatters Yard and the playground – provide a public space.
The Rotunda will hold publicly accessible events linked to Hatters Yard, a pedestrian connection to the Mad Hatter public house. The space is designed for food stalls and public art.
The design aims to minimise embodied carbon and is targeting a 20% to 30% improvement against the Greater London Authority benchmark.
Hines alongside the National Pension Service of Korea bought 18-20 Blackfriars Road for £208.5 million in 2021 from a 50-50 joint venture between Malaysia's Black Pearl IGB Corportion and Tower Ray. The duo believes the site has a gross development value of £1 billion.
The site has had a chequered recent history. Landsec sold the vacant site to Israeli-backed Circleplane in 2007 before its acquisition in 2014 by Malaysian-backed, Jersey-registered company Black Pearl for £114 million.
Black Pearl appointed CBRE to advise on funding and delivery options in February of 2019.
A joint venture formed by Hero and Catalyst Capital decided against progressing with the purchase of the site for an £1 billion London hotel and office development site from Malaysia’s Black Pearl.