105 Victoria Street, London, will begin construction this year, with Skanska as the main contractor. The £400 million development is a co-investment between the Public Sector Pension Investment Board, one of Canada’s largest pension investment managers, and Welput investors. The development is the largest speculative West End office scheme ever to come forward to Westminster City Council, writes Thom Wilkinson, a Partner in solicitors Bishop & Sewell’s Property and Environmental Law team.
CBRE and JLL have been appointed as the commercial leasing agents.
Reported here the 500,000 sq ft building will not only be operational net-zero, but achieve net-zero embodied carbon using innovations in ultra-low carbon construction to minimise the carbon intensity of the development. Carbon emitted from the project will be offset within six years of the new building’s operations in comparison to the retention and refurbishment of the existing building.
The building will also be the largest all-electric office in the UK, and all of the development’s energy will be supplied from fully renewable sources, with no gas supply and no diesel generator on-site, ensuring zero fossil fuels in operation and during construction. As a result, the building is designed to meet EPC A and WELL Platinum certification and exceed RIBA 2030 sustainability targets as well.
The scheme is also the UK’s first office building to target a combined BREEAM Outstanding and 5.5* NABERS rating, the world-leading environmental performance rating tool which rates the operational energy use of offices.
Designed by architect Kohn Pederson Fox, alongside interior architect Henning Larsen, 105 Victoria Street will create a new kind of community-focused, experiential building in Victoria, providing up to 450,000 sq ft of world-class workspace, including 5,500 sq ft dedicated to affordable space, and over 30,000 sq ft of retail space.
It will also provide almost 30,000 sq ft of green space and terracing – the largest of any commercial building in the West End and equivalent to ten double tennis courts – which will include a 200m ‘walk and talk’ track and an urban farm with community allotments.
For all sorts of these UK-first reasons, I expect we’ll hear a lot more about 105 Victoria Street, in the coming months.
As ever, if you would like to discuss any of the points raised in this article, please do get in contact, quoting reference CB305. Thom Wilkinson is a Partner specialising in Property and Environmental Law and is contactable on Tel: +44 (0)20 4513 6073 or email: [email protected]
About Bishop & Sewell LLP
Bishop & Sewell is a long-established, full service Central London law firm – with an international reach – specialising in Personal, Property and Commercial legal matters. To learn more, visit www.bishopandsewell.co.uk
