A hospitality group with a turnover of £3 billion plans to partially demolish and modernize a 13-story building next to Fenchurch Street Station and add three additional floors under a design developed by hotel specialists Axiom Architects.
The planned 16-story building will feature 420 guest rooms, a pub, as well as street-level retail spaces and a cultural space.
The existing 90,000-square-foot building, New London House, was built in the 1970s by EPR Architects. It was purchased by Whitbread for £56.5 million in 2023.
Mark Anderson, Managing Director of the real estate company, stated that the London office market is undergoing a "structural shift," which presents opportunities to acquire buildings that are no longer suitable for office use.
“Our strong balance sheet, significant liquidity, and ability to buy and develop properties that are rarely available in our sector give Whitbread a very strong opportunity to take advantage of this structural shift,” he said.
This project will be the sixth Premier Inn hotel within the City of London, where the brand is already represented at two locations near Tower Hill: one at Bank and the other at Blackfriars, as well as a fifth hotel near Smithfield.
The New London House project team includes project lead Cumming, planning consultant DP9, structural engineers Elliott Wood, landscape architect Turkington Martin, and urban landscape consultant The Townscape Consultancy.