Design and build contractor Ardmore has won an £80M project to transform the grade I listed former Midland Bank headquarters in the City of London into a new five star hotel.
The firm, working working with Sydell Group and Soho House, will be carrying out major internal structural alterations, sensitive restoration of listed features, and high quality fit out throughout the entire building.
Restoration works will be undertaken on the building’s Portland stone facades, along with the decorated banking hall and old safety deposit vault.
When complete the new flagship hotel will house 252 suites of varying sizes, restaurants, a rooftop bar with landscaped terraces, a health spa and gym, event spaces, an underground bar in the retained safety deposit vaults and a private members’ club.
The building was originally designed by architect Sir Edward Lutyens, while the new scheme has been designed by EPR.
It is understood that Ardmore beat out competition from Balfour Beatty, McLaren and beck Interiors to secure the contract.
• Overall confidence levels about future workload prospects for architects continue to be positive across the whole of the UK according to the RIBA Future Trends Workload Index.
The Index stands at +29 for September compared to +28 in August.
RIBA Director of Practice Adrian Dobson said: “Although the private housing and commercial sectors clearly offer the best current prospects, there is a sense of greater stability in public sector workloads, with larger practices in particular becoming more optimistic about a more predictable pipeline of public sector construction expenditure, and modest signs of increasing activity in the community sector.”
“However”, he added, “there remains significant competitive pressure on fees and whilst aggregate turnover is rising, profit margins on projects often remain very tight”.
