Schroder Real Estate and Stanhope's plans for the City of London's second-tallest office tower at 55 Bishopsgate have been recommended for approval ahead of a committee meeting on Thursday 21 July.
The likely consent comes as CoStar data shows this year is set to be the biggest for new office completions in London since 2003.
Schroders and Stanhope's plans were lodged in October year and propose demolition of the existing building and the erection of a part-63 storey and part-22 storey building plus basement. It will include offices, a publicly accessible multi-purpose space at ground floor level, as well as retail, food and beverage, a drinking establishment, learning, community use, exhibition and performance space, a public viewing gallery and public realm improvements.
The plans are for more than 800,000 square feet of offices in total for circa 7,000 workers with office floorplates designed to be subdivided.
At 285m above sea level the Arney Fender Katsalidis-designed plans would be just smaller than the City of London's tallest tower, 22 Bishopsgate, which is 295 metres, and smaller than London's tallest building The Shard at 310 metres. There is also a consent for a tower at 1 Undershaft in the City that would reach 305 metres if built.
As part of their consultation, the duo said the site occupies one of the few remaining sites appropriate for tall buildings in the City, offering an opportunity to create new workspace of scale. It is also the first step in opening up the area between Tower 42, Bishopsgate, Old Broad Street and Wormwood Street as part of the City of London’s Renewal Opportunity Area.
The developers say the building will be at the cutting edge of sustainable and low carbon construction and has a dramatic design that reflects structures found in nature.
Planning documents reveal they are in talks to develop a permanent home for the London Centre, which houses the New London Architecture body for the built environment, at the site. It would be a dedicated hub for the built environment which would use the lower public floors and top-level public viewing gallery and conservatory space. The selected partner would act as the main operator of the cultural offer, including the exhibition, auditorium and coworking spaces.
There have been some objections, notably over height, from Historic England and Westminster City Council, which objects to the "harmful impact upon the significance of designated heritage assets within Westminster, including historic townscape, sensitive views, including Waterloo Bridge, Golden Jubilee Bridge and St James's Park. The Twentieth Century Society objects to the demolition of the existing building and considers it worthy of consideration as a non-designated heritage asset.
City planners are recommending the proposals for approval.
Schroder Real Estate bought the 193,000-square-foot building on the site in December 2015 from Canada Pension Plan Investment Board for just under £190 million on behalf of a separate account client.
By mid-way through 2016 the building was fully let, following lettings to Towergate Underwriting, Boots and Fitness First totalling 63,000 square feet. The final tenant to sign up was Hampshire Trust Bank, taking a ten year lease of the first floor at a rent equating to £61 per square feet.
Schroder Capital secured a £93.75 million, 18-month loan extension from DekaBank on the office in 2020.
Despite modest office investment this year, take-up figures and rents for the most prime offices in the capital have remained robust and developers are clearly responding to strong demand for highly sustainable offices.
CoStar is tracking 20 million square of offices under construction across Greater London. The largest of these are 40 Leadenhall and Google's headquarters at King's Cross.
CoStar's head of UK analytics Mark Stansfield said: "Construction starts across central London hit a seven-year high last year as 4.5 million square feet of new offices broke ground, with more projects being readied despite higher debt costs and rising vacancy across the market.
"Developers of these new schemes clearly remain bullish that the flight-to-quality trend we've observed in our data will persist in the coming years and that healthy preleasing will help maintain top-tier rents. There have been a host of recent examples of firms upgrading into high-quality, sustainable buildings in the best locations – and paying well to do so – but taking less space than they had previously."