The owner of an almost-empty “70s gas-guzzler” office block in London’s Blackfriars is set to redevelop it as a 152-bedroom hotel operated by Germany’s Motel One chain.
The seven-storey office block at 9 Bridewell Place, EC4, sits on the site of the former Blackfriars Prison and was built in the 1970s. Grainmarket Properties bought it almost two decades ago and is today the last remaining tenant.
A City of London Corporation sign-off earlier this month clears the way for Grainmarket Properties’ Bridewell joint venture to change the building’s use to hotel, remove the top two floors and add five more.
A planning statement from consultancy Callidus described the existing building as “detached and isolated” and “dark and uninviting”, with “disjointed layouts”.
“For these reasons large parts of the building have remained unlet for considerable periods,” Callidus said. “These problems have been compounded by the shifts in working patterns inspired by the pandemic. Because there are a large number of less compromised spaces available, it seems unlikely that the building will be properly utilised in its current use for the foreseeable future.”
Callidus noted the poor environmental performance of the building, describing it as a “70s gas-guzzler” and saying it “consumes large amounts of energy to heat it in winter and to cool it in summer”.
The redevelopment will reuse “as much of the existing buildings superstructure as possible”, documents said – for example, the existing brickwork on the facades has been earmarked to be used to extend the stairwell envelope. A circular economy statement for the scheme said it would retain 61% of the volume of the existing structure, with 39% new building.
Viability statements produced when the application was lodged in November 2022 pegged the hotel scheme with a GDV of £45m.
Refurbishing the site but keeping it as an office would give it a GDV of £19m, the analysis by HK London said, while a “substantial” upgrade with a redevelopment of the top two floors would stand at £28.2m and new-build offices within a hotel “envelope” at £32.7m.
Munich-based Motel One has already signed on as the hotel operator. A market report from Gerald Eve said that nearby occupiers including Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Amazon “will drive strong corporate demand” for the hotel, and tourist attractions such as the Southbank Centre, Somerset House, St Paul’s Cathedral and the Tate Modern are all less than a mile away. Competition will come from a Premier Inn directly opposite.
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