A planning application is being drawn up for a 54-storey tower in the City of London to replace a block built in the 1970s that houses the headquarters of Multiplex Europe.
The City of London Corporation received preliminary notification of the proposal this month, which would see a new 240-metre high-rise (AOD) being built at 99 Bishopsgate, 200 meters south of Liverpool Street station.
Multiplex Europe currently occupies the second floor of the existing 28-storey building after it moved from Broadgate in 2018.
Documents filed with the corporation said: “The design of the proposed development is ongoing at the time of preparation [report]However, the proposed development is expected to include the partial demolition of the existing building on site to facilitate the construction of a new high-rise, mixed-use building with a separate pavilion building providing services and/ or public access cultural space.
“Elements of the existing building will be retained wherever possible.”
The document said the new tower would include up to 97,000 square meters of office space and about 2,000 square meters of public access retail/food and beverage space.
The documents form an application to the City of London Corporation for an environmental scoping opinion on the scheme, ahead of the submission of a detailed planning application.
The main report was prepared by Trium Environmental Consulting on behalf of 99 Bishopsgate SARL, a Luxembourg-registered entity registered at Companies House in February.
Companies House filings list the company’s beneficial owners as Canadian businessman and philanthropist Victor Dahdaleh and the Chinese government’s finance ministry.
News of the scheme, which would become one of the tallest in the city of London, has already raised concerns from aviation bodies.
National air traffic control body NATS told planners in a submission that the block’s proposed height has “significant potential for impact on its operations”, specifically a radar operating at the airport Heathrow.
He said: “Consequently, NATS envisages that the upper half of the building will be sufficiently illuminated by radar to reflect radar signals and cause false aircraft targets on air traffic controllers’ displays. This has a unacceptable impact on ATC [air traffic control] workload”.
London City Airport also told planners the plan could conflict with its “safeguarding criteria”.
The existing building at 99 Bishopsgate was designed by architect Richard Seifert, completed in 1976 and then occupied by HSBC before its move to Canary Wharf.
In 1993 the building was damaged by a lorry bomb detonated by the Provisional IRA outside the building, leading to substantial refurbishment involving a new facade, the addition of two floors additional and larger floor plates.
In 2012, 13,000 square meters of empty office space in the tower received a new category A fit-out and in 2013 a new entrance and reception facade was completed.
99 Bishopsgate is adjacent to 55 Bishopsgate, which will also be redeveloped after planning permission was granted in July for a 63-storey, 284-metre-high (AOD) tower, which will become the third tower highest of the square mile.
Multiplex was the main contractor for the 295 meter high tower (AOD) at 22 Bishopsgate, completed in 2020. It is the tallest building in the City of London and the second tallest in the UK after The Shard.
In 2019, the City of London gave the go-ahead for the 73-storey, 289-metre-tall Undershaft tower next to the Gherkin, but a main contractor has not yet been appointed for the job.
