Walsingham House London, UK

Walsingham House is an office building dating from the early 1920’s, of steel frame and Portland stone construction, located opposite a Grade I listed church immediately to the south of Fenchurch Street station.

The façade retention scheme involved removing the existing top floor, adding two new floors with external terraces, a new core and intermediate floors.  The existing basement was deepened to create an improved lower ground level.  The facades were fully repaired and cleaned and the building fitted out to Cat A.

Acting as Development Manager for our Hong Kong client, JLL oversaw the initial feasibility studies to define the scheme and secured planning consent from City of London.  The design was taken to RIBA Stage 4 and procured single stage, let under a D&B form of contract.

The development delivered an increase of nearly 50% NIA and achieved BREEAM Excellent.

Key challenges that JLL successfully navigated include:

• Managing out Rights of Light risk through a strategy of active negotiation and insurance backed wait and see
• Managing the vacant possession strategy to maintain rent roll whilst undertaking targeted surveys and intrusive investigations to inform the detailed design and offset risk
• Agreeing good neighbour agreements with adjoining owners: Hilton Double Tree hotel; and St Olave’s church for the construction phase
• Managing party wall agreements
• Managing Planning & S106 agreement conditions
• Delivery of a new UKPN network substation located within the basement through negotiation as opposed to the ground floor as standard UKPN requirement
• Reorganising a top down demolition sequence to offset delay in the ground from extensive MOLAS finds
• Removal of deleterious materials including asbestos and lead paint; and structural checks of the retained steel frame to manage risk to development value
• Supporting the marketing and leasing strategy