£300m Regent Palace hotel revamp completed

Work has been completed on Quadrant 3, the latest development in the Crown Estate’s £1bn revamp of London’s Regent Street.

The project has transformed the 1915 Regent Palace hotel - once the largest in Europe - into a £300m multi-use building which will offer 200,000 square feet of office space over seven floors, as well as retail space and restaurants.

Dixon Jones was the principal architect on the scheme, with Sir Robert McAlpine as construction manager and Stanhope as development manager.

The new building will be known as AirW1, a reference to its postcode and to the adjacent Air Street.

Generation Investment Management, a company co-founded by former US vice president Al Gore, will move into the top floor this week.

Gore’s firm will occupy offices covering 21,300ft², at a rent of more than £90ft².   

He said he was attracted by AirW1’s “emphasis on sustainability, fully aligned with our own values and investment philosophy.”

The building will be powered by one of Europe’s largest and most efficient fuel cells, which will reduce its carbon emissions by 40%.

Future occupants of the building include retailer Whole Foods, which is fitting out a 17,000ft² store that will open onto the newly pedestrianised Glasshouse Street and is scheduled to open next spring.

AirW1 houses two Art Deco restaurants, formerly the Atlantic Bar & Grill and Titanic, which have been painstakingly restored with timber veneer, marble pillars and original wallpaper.   

The Quadrant 3 redevelopment is the third phase of a four stage redevelopment programme covering the Crown’s four million sq ft Regent Street estate.

Roger Bright, chief executive of the Crown Estate said: “Quadrant 3 is the latest development in our £1bn Regent Street investment programme and delivers a wholesale transformation to this prominent part of the West End.

“It is the largest and most ambitious scheme we have ever undertaken, and as my time at the helm of the Crown Estate draws to a close, I can’t think of a more fitting symbol of all we have achieved in Regent Street during the last decade.”