City primed for new Pinnacle tower plan

The City of London is expecting a new planning application with an entirely new design for the stalled Pinnacle tower to be submitted in the coming weeks.

According to Building’s sister title Building Design, a fresh planning application with an entirely new design is currently being worked on for the mothballed site in the City of London’s eastern cluster and could be just be weeks away from submission.

Gwyn Richards, the City of London Corporation’s new head of design, said he was in on-going discussions about the scheme.

“I’m confident a scheme will be coming forward for planning in the next few months but it will be a completely different design approach,” he told BD.

“People say the original design now looks very dated and clunky.”

He would not reveal which architect was working on the new application, and it is not clear if the proposal is being put forward by the current backers of the scheme or is a rival proposal.

Building revealed last December that rival development teams led by Lipton Rogers and US-based developer Hines, backed by investors, are lining up rival bids for the scheme, which could see the existing development team replaced.

Property agent CBRE was drafted in by majority owners Sedco and sharia-compliant fund Pramerica last year to explore options for reviving the scheme that has been stalled since early 2012.

CBRE has said the project team behind the original scheme – contractor Brookfield Multiplex, engineer Arup, architect Kohn Pederson Fox (KPF), cost consultant Aecom and M&E consultant Hilson Moran – have agreed to complete the project on a maximum price contract, should the new investors choose to retain them.