British Land appoints architect to turn £20m City car park into logistics hub

British Land has appointed architect Harris Partnership to draw up plans for a logistics hub at a former NCP car park in the City of London.

The developer splashed out £20m last year for the Finsbury Square car park which it wants to turn into a last-mile logistics complex.

The scheme is still at pre-planning but the developer has previously said the scheme could go down underground by as much as three levels with electric vans, scooters and bikes arriving to pick up parcels for delivery around the city.

British Land is not speaking to contractors yet but planning to draw up a shortlist of bidders next autumn ahead of starting on site the following year.

It has two other similar sites in the middle of London which, along with Finsbury Square, total 317,000 sq ft of space.

In its interim results last month, the firm said it would be submitting a planning application to Westminster council for a new 127,000 sq ft underground urban logistics hub at 5 Kingdom Street at its Paddington Central campus which has a further 211,000 sq ft of consented office space, drawn up by Allies & Morrison, above it.

The original plans had proposals for community, business, retail and sport and leisure place across three storeys below ground.

British Land had been looking at stepping up its logistics business before the pandemic hit but the arrival in 2020 of chief executive Simon Carter speeded things up, given his previous experience working for logistics business Logicor.

Harris Partnership has five offices dotted around the UK, including London and Manchester, and its workload includes several industrial schemes in South Yorkshire and County Durham.