Team working on HSBC’s new City HQ expecting bank to run rule over job shortly

The project team working on HSBC’s new headquarters in the City is expecting the banking giant to have more input into the job now its departure from Canary Wharf has been confirmed, Building understands.

The bank has been based in 8 Canada Square for more than two decades but hopes to downsize to the Panorama St Paul’s development at 81 Newgate Street.

The 1980s building, a former BT head office, was 10 storeys high when completed but is being remodelled under plans drawn up by KPF.

One source told Building: “We think HSBC will want an involvement for their new HQ.”

Much of the structural frame is being reused, speeding up the building programme while helping to make the office project net-zero carbon enabled with the use of photovoltaics and air source heat pumps. More than 1,500 tonnes of stone and granite is being reused while nearly 300 tonnes of carbon is being saved by replacing concrete piles with steel.

Mace is on site extending the building to 13 storeys as well as building landscaped terraces and occupier wellness and well-being amenities. It will also include a retail arcade at street level, alongside a rooftop terrace with a restaurant and wildflower meadow that will be open to the public.

Others working on the project include structural engineer AKT II and project cost consultant RLB.

The job is understood to be costing around £270m and is being carried out under a design and build contract which is due to finish in 2025.

HSBC will leave its current office when its lease expires in 2027. The building, which was originally built by Canary Wharf Group, is now owned by Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund which bought it for £1.1bn in 2014.

The 45-storey tower was designed by Foster & Partners with the first HSBC staff moving in in 2002, with work having started three years earlier.

At its peak, around 8,000 people came in to its Canary Wharf tower but the number of staff returning has not recovered to its pre-pandemic level.

As its financial tenants reassess their requirements, Canary Wharf has been aiming to grow into the burgeoning lie sciences sector. Last December, it submitted plans for 23-storey life sciences building, drawn up by KPF, along with Dutch investor Kadans Science Partner.

HSBC’s decision means another huge fit-out scheme will be up for grabs in the coming years with ISG and Overbury the obvious frontrunners for the work.

ISG has been revamping the Canary Wharf headquarters of Barclays Bank for the past 18 months while Overbury is overhauling Citi’s Canary Wharf headquarters in a deal which could end up being the firm’s biggest ever.

The US investment bank has given the job to overhaul its 42-storey office tower at 25 Canada Square, completed in 2001 to a design drawn up by César Pelli & Associates, an official value of £100m.

But Building understands the final price could be north of £300m and as much as £400m – making it Morgan Sindall-owned Overbury’s biggest job in its 58 year history.