Braeburn Estates’ Master Planned 1.45-Million-Square-Foot Shell Centre Redevelopment Approved
The planning application submitted by Braeburn Estates, a joint venture between Canary Wharf Group and Qatari Diar to redevelop the Shell Centre on London’s South Bank, has been approved by the London Borough of Lambeth.
By Gabriel Circiog, Associate Editor
London—The planning application submitted by Braeburn Estates, a joint venture between Canary Wharf Group and Qatari Diar to redevelop the Shell Centre on London’s South Bank, has been approved by the London Borough of Lambeth.
The master plan designed by Squire and Partners calls for a 1,450,000-square-foot mixed-use scheme which will transform the 1960s office site and provide new offices for Shell and other corporate organizations as well as hundreds of new homes and new retail outlets. The plan is part of an on-going regeneration of the Waterloo and South Bank area.
The 27-story Shell Centre Tower will be in the center of a mix of offices, homes and retail spaces, all integrated with open attractive public areas. The tower will be owned and occupied by Shell and will be accompanied by eight new buildings, out of which one will include another 245,000 square feet of new offices and trading floors for Shell.
The whole project will include around 800,000 square feet of office space (including the Shell Centre Tower), 80,000 square feet of retail, café and restaurant space, as well as approximately 800,000 square feet of residential space, which will incorporate up to 877 new homes, including affordable housing. Besides Squire and Partners the architects contributing to the project include Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, Patel Taylor, Stanton Williams, GRID Architecture and Townshend Landscape Architects.
The project aims to maintain a 50:50 mixed-use scheme as opposed to other residential-focused developments across London. The construction project, at its peak, will create approximately 1,630 on-site jobs. Upon completion of the project Shell London head office will be able, for the first time, to locate all their 4,000 London-based staff in the same office. The total number of jobs on site, once construction is completed, will exceed 6,000.
Sir George Iacobescu, chairman and CEO, Canary Wharf Group, says: “We are delighted that Lambeth Council has approved these plans for us to work on such an important and historical site. We will continue to work with the London Borough of Lambeth and the local community as we move to the next phase of planning and development to ensure that all involved in the area get the best possible opportunities from this new development.”
