The plan is to build the tower on the site of the former Royal Mail sorting office at 31 London Street, next to Paddington station, where a Crossrail station is set to open in three years’ time.
The £1bn development, to be called Paddington Place, has been designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop, which also designed The Shard next to London Bridge station.
Sellar’s partner on the Paddington tower is Great Western Developments Ltd, a subsidiary of Singaporean publicly listed Hotel Properties Ltd.
When the plans for first made public in October, the proposed tower was 224 metres high. Under revised plans, it is now 254 metres high. This now makes it higher than One Canada Square in Canary Wharf (which is 235 metres). The Shard is 309 metres.
The Paddington Place development will have more than 330 apartments, 10,000 m2 (108,000 square feet) of office space and approximately 5,000 m2 of retail and leisure space at Praed Street, rail concourse and tube station levels.
It is expected to take four years to build and create 450 construction jobs per year in the process.
More than an acre of new public realm will be created, including a piazza in front of Paddington station. The ramp that serves as the station’s entrance will be removed to open up the area in front.
There will also be other changes to the configuration of the London Underground tube station. A new Bakerloo Line ticket hall will be built, approximately four times larger than at present, and connectivity to the Circle/District and Bakerloo Line platforms will be improved to cope with increased capacity. As part of the reconfiguration, London Street will be realigned and augmented by a suspension bridge.
The end of 2018 will see the opening of Crossrail, together with upgrades to stations, platforms, signalling and trains serving the M4 corridor to Wales and southwest England. Footfall through Paddington is predicted to rise by 50% to more than 60 million passengers per year by 2031.
Hotel Properties director Chris Lim said: “This is a unique opportunity involving an investment of over £1bn to provide many public benefits and a scheme which we believe will drive further investment in the wider area.”
Sellar Property Group chairman Irvine Sellar added: “This exciting transformational development will enhance this important part of central London. Paddington’s transport interchange will be fit for purpose for the 21st century and the wider mixed-use development and public space will enhance the way residents, visitors, businesses and their people live work and play, and will make a major contribution in revitalising this district.”
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