Landsec to resubmit plans for larger City office scheme

Landsec will resubmit plans for a larger scheme on its site above Moorgate’s underground station in the City of London later this year.

The developer, which last week sold its 50% stake in the Walkie Talkie building for £634.5m, confirmed the redesign of its already-consented plans for 21 Moorfields after revealing it had pre-let 469,000 sq ft of office space to Deutsche Bank for its new London headquarters on a 25-year lease at the site, subject to planning approval.

The revised scheme, which is again being designed by Wilkinson Eyre, will still comprise two buildings of “broadly the same height” as the consented design but with 8% more space, a spokesperson for Landsec said.

The current plans have the two buildings rising up to 16 storeys in height and totalling 522,000 sq ft of office and ground level retail space set around a new public square.

The new designs will see the buildings provide 564,000 sq ft of space, on the 1.9 acre site.

Landsec acquired the site in 2015 winning planning approval for the current scheme in November that year. But it had to apply the City of London in March last year for powers to enable the development to proceed after it was unable to settle “a significant number” of right of light claims.

The firm asked the City to authorise the purchase of an interest in the site in order to continue with the development.

At the time, the developer’s development director Kiran Pawar said: “21 Moorfields is a strategically important site in the City of London, positioned above the new Crossrail station and the regeneration of this site is clearly in the public interest. Requesting the City of London to use their powers…will help to prevent unnecessary delays to the delivery of the scheme.”

Deutsche Bank previously pre-let 92,000 sq ft on a 15-year lease at another Land Securities scheme, The Zig Zag building in Victoria to move some of its banking operations from the Square Mile.