Keltbray on board for Landsec City tower job

Keltbray has begun work on Landsec’s redevelopment at 55 Old Broad Street in the City of London.

Scaffolding is going up at the site with a 24-storey tower designed by Fletcher Priest due to be replace a 1970s-built block which had included a pub and bank at street level.

The City gave the scheme the green light in November 2023 despite objections from the Victorian Society which said the tower, which will be partially cantilevered over a listed Victorian bath house, would “engulf” the 1895 Turkish-style building.

Landsec paid £87m for 55 Old Broad Street in 2020, saying at the time that redeveloping the 10-storey building would result in a “compelling best-in-class destination” over the medium term.

The plans propose the renovation of the grade II-listed bath house, public realm improvements and the provision of a pub.

The project would deliver 33,081 sq m of new office space, a new pub, retail space and around 5,500 sq m of ancillary space, Landsec said. Work could start in 2025, the developer has previously said.

M&E consultant Atelier Ten, structural engineer Heyne Tillett Steel, project manager Turner & Townsend are all part of the project team.

Bam was working as construction consultant on the job but is understood to now no longer be working on it.

Landsec has put plans for a £200m Bankside office on hold with the firm saying it is scaling back the amount of office work it carries out, having unveiled plans last month for a £2bn sell-off of parts of its office-led assets over the next five years to fund an expansion into residential.

A spokesperson said: “As we said at our most recent half year results, we don’t plan to commit to any new development for the remainder of this year given the sizeable amount of activity we already have on site.”