The British Red Cross is to quit its UK headquarters of 38 years.
The aid charity has bought Swiss Re’s 48,000 sq ft (4,500 sq m) former office, Moorfields House, Moorgate, EC2, and will move operations from its present home at Grosvenor Crescent, SW1, HQ later this year.
The charity – the largest humanitarian charity in the world – paid around £7.3m for the eight-storey building, which was owned and occupied by the reinsurer.
Built in the 1960s, the building was refurbished by Swiss Re in 1999, ahead of its move to the “erotic gherkin”, 30 St Mary Axe, EC3, last month.
The British Red Cross said its existing office, a terrace of several interconnected Regency town houses, was “no longer appropriate for the effective running of one of the country’s leading charities”.
Richard Watson of DE&J Levy, which advised the Red Cross, said: “The aims were to ensure a central location close to other charities and to reduce overall direct property costs, which we have delivered successfully.”
Grosvenor and Red Cross will be jointly marketing a new 125-year lease for the properties in Grosvenor Crescent later in the year through Godfrey Vaughan, DE&J Levy and WA Ellis.
Swiss Re was advised by Knight Frank.
References: EGi News 19/01/04
