See an example of office space in Broadgate – The Broadgate Tower
The owners of Broadgate Square, British Land and the Blackstone Group, had been planning on demolishing the two buildings in order to free up space to build a new headquarters for Swiss banking giant UBS AG.
State conservation outfit English Heritage recently recommended that Broadgate Square be given the second highest level of protection from demolition available.
The government’s decision on whether to accept the advice from English Heritage will be made in the next five weeks.
British Land commented that were the buildings to be listed, the move would “raise the question of where to locate 7,000 permanent banking jobs and put at risk more than 5,000 construction jobs.”
City planners had already approved the plan to redevelop Broadgate Square to the tune of GBP 850 million. The proposed new building would include 700,000 square feet of office space.
A recent poll of architects carried out by Architects’ Journal found that 68 per cent of those surveyed were against making Broadgate Square a listed development. Were it to become listed, the development would be only the second-ever post-war London building to be given this status.
London publication City AM is currently pursuing a campaign to prevent Broadgate from becoming listed. So far those behind the campaign are the Lord Mayor of the City of London Michael Bear, Patrick Claridge, chief of Merchant Securities Group, and chairman of London Bridge Capital Adam Hart.
Currently, the capital is in desperate need of more office space as the financial services industry rebounds from the financial crisis and more jobs are created.
Editor’s notes: The planning permission for 5 Broadgate which, as of June 2023, was UBS’s London headquarters office, was upheld.
The landlords went ahead and demolished two properties to create a 700,000 square foot ‘Ground-scraper’ which was so-nicknamed as it was just 12 storeys tall – 5 Broadgate completed in 2015.
In June 2013, it was announced that Broadgate was ‘immune from listing’ as not of special historic interest beyond that of other commercial buildings of the 1980s.