by Alex Catalano
St Martins Property Corporation are drawing up plans to redevelop a large block in the City opposite St Paul’s Cathedral.
According to director Malcolm Savage, the scheme could be as large as 500,000 sq ft, depending on the height and plot ratio allowed by the City Corporation. St Martins already own the entire site, shown here, and a number of the leases are due to fall in over the next couple of years.
At the northern end of the site, British Telecom are in Armour House, while tenants of Empire House include the Arab Bank and Inland Revenue. St Martins’ parent company, the Kuwait Investment Office, are in St Vedast House, and it has not yet been decided whether to include this building in a scheme.
However, Malcolm Savage stresses that it is early days yet. “We will be looking at sketch schemes in the next month or so to examine our options, and also to analyse whether a scheme would be worthwhile or not,” he says. The architects are an American firm, Swanke Hayden Connell, who designed Trump Tower in New York City.
The site is described as a “difficult” one by Peter Rees, the City Corporation’s controller of planning. “It’s a case of finding a development which fits in with the scale of Foster Lane and has no deleterious effect on St Paul’s,” he says.
The area north of St Paul’s is seeing its fortunes revive. Projects include Kumagai Gumi and Glengate’s redevelopment of the former Post Office headquarters, bought by Nomura Securities, Wimpey’s revised plans for Little Britain, and both Slough Estates and Land Securities in Aldersgate. To the south of the cathedral the consortium, led by Stockley, are studying the options for Paternoster Square.
