City approves plans for new offices by Fire of London Monument

The City of London has granted planning permission for the development of an 88,000 sq ft (8,175 sq m) office-led scheme, next to the historic Monument column which commemorates the Fire of London in 1666. The project by Skanska Project Development Ltd (SPDL) will see the existing buildings at 11-15 Monument Street, 46 Fish Street Hill and 1-2 Pudding Hill replaced with around 85,000 sq ft (7,896 sq m) of offices on nine floors, with floorplates of around 10,000 sq ft (929 sq m), and 3,000 sq ft (278 sq m) of ground floor retail accommodation. Work is expected to start on site later in the year with completion scheduled for 2015.

The site for the new offices, which Skanska acquired last year is being designed by Ken Shuttleworth’s Make  Architects, with 40,000 sq  ft of the office space being occupied by Skanska UK and the remainder of the space being let to occupiers looking for offices upwards of 10,000 sq ft in the city location.

Skanska Project Development’s Neal Pickering said of this week’s approval by the City of London planning committee: “We believe that 11-19 Monument Street will  set new occupational standards in terms of design and sustainability.”

Gary Rawlings, Partner at Make Architects said: “We are delighted 11-19 Monument Square has been granted planning consent. The scheme for SPDL will create a high quality, contemporary, energy efficient building which celebrates its contextual setting adjacent to Wren and Hooke’s Monument to the Great Fire of London.”

Savills has been appointed to bring the surplus office space to the market. Nash Bond has been appointed to market the retail accommodation. Arup has been appointed as engineer and GVA is advising on planning.

By Sara Bean