BT Tower, one of London’s most iconic buildings, is to be transformed into a landmark hotel.
Telecommunications giant BT is in the early stages of drawing up plans to turn the 620ft tower at 60 Cleveland Street, W1, into a luxury boutique hotel.
Estates Gazette understands it has already appointed a team of designers to come up with preliminary ideas.
The secret plans are expected to include the expansion of the base of the tower to accommodate the hotel, and the reopening of the revolving restaurant on the building’s 34th floor. The restaurant was closed to the public in 1981.
One leading architect suggested that BT could add “a six- or seven-storey building at the base” of the tower.
BT currently uses the Grade II listed building as a communications centre and has 50,000 sq ft of offices in the building.
The plans are part of BT’s push to utilise its retained property portfolio.
The group is also drawing up proposals for a 250-acre mixed-use development around its Adastral park headquarters at Martlesham Heath, near Ipswich.
BT, which appointed Elaine Hewitt as its new property head in 2006, outsourced the majority of its 75m sq ft estate to Telereal in 2001 in a £2.38bn deal. However, it retained the freeholds to both the tower and its 300,000 sq ft headquarters building near St Paul’s Catherdral, EC1.
BT refused to comment on its plans for the tower, apart from saying that the building was part of its retained property portfolio.
BT Tower history
The 620 ft BT Tower, also known as Post Office Tower, opened in 1966 – at a cost of £2.5m – as a communications hub, complete with offices, viewing galleries, a souvenir shop, and a revolving restaurant.
In 1971, an IRA bomb exploded in the restaurant but it remained open for a further nine years before the tower was closed to the public.
Renamed the London Telecom Tower ahead of privatisation of the telecommunications sector in 1984, the building has been known as the BT Tower since the company rebranded in 1992.
