Willmott Dixon set to start work early next year
Make Architects has submitted proposals to refurbish a grade II-listed 1930s leisure centre in Westminster, adding a new community library and café in the process.
Designed by Kenneth Cross and completed in 1937, Seymour Leisure Centre in Marylebone was built as a palazzo-style red-brick courtyard block with two swimming pools in concrete structures concealed at the centre.
Westminster City Council’s cabinet last year allocated £40m for the building’s latest refurbishment, which will include providing a new base for Marylebone Library over two floors. Although the sports centre is owned by the council it is operated by business Everyone Active.
Westminster is targeting a start on site for the project early next year for completion in early 2026.
Willmott Dixon is main contractor; project manager is Hadron Consulting; Donald Insall Associates is heritage consultant.
Make’s proposals will create open-plan gym space on the lower ground floor and add a new range of studios for spin, aerobics and other classes.
The Seymour Centre originally had two indoor pools, a stage, a spectators’ area, a laundry, individual slipper baths, and a flat for the facility’s superintendent.
Only the smaller of its two pools now remains. The original “first-class swimming pool” is now the sports hall at the centre of the building.
The project will see the removal of the main swimming-pool tank to create space for the new lower-ground-floor fitness suite.
The existing roof lanterns and wind catchers in the sports hall will be replaced with new double-glazed versions, and secondary glazing will be installed on all other sports-hall windows.
The roof lantern above the remaining swimming pool will be replaced with a double-glazed lantern. An external private roof terrace will also be created as part of the project. Additionally, four new passenger lifts and three platform lifts will be installed.
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