Portman Estate gets nod for Edgware Road office overhaul

Plans for the Portman Estate’s major new office scheme on Edgware Road, W2, are set to be approved. City of Westminster planning officers recommended the land swap scheme be granted approval. The estate, which owns 110 acres in central London, submitted applications to redevelop two of its buildings this summer. It proposed the redevelopment of Garfield House at 86-110 Edgware Road and Bernard House at 163-169 George Street as a single, seven-storey building. The new building will include approximately 82,000 sq ft of grade-A office space, as well as nearly 13,000 sq ft of retail, food and beverage, leisure and community space. To accommodate the loss of homes in Bernard House, the estate made a separate planning application for a change of use at its nearby 57-59 Gloucester Place, W1. Those townhouses have recently been used as office space but will be converted back into five residential units ranging from 2-3 bedrooms under the strategic land use swap. The planning officer said there had been no objections to the proposed development initiative “to provide additional residential floorspace and significantly higher-quality accommodation at this site”. “While the proposal would result in some less-than-substantial harm to the listed buildings, it is considered the benefits of the scheme in land use, environmental and heritage terms outweigh that harm”, the officer said in a report to the planning committee. In August, Simon Loomes, Portman Estate’s strategic projects director, told EG the project would form “a major cornerstone for the next phase in the ambitious 20-year regeneration programme for Edgware Road”. Original documents submitted to Westminster City Council earlier this year, and drafted by Gerald Eve, described the existing Garfield House as “unattractive and not befitting of the site’s prominent location”. The City of Westminster major planning applications sub-committee will vote on the scheme on 15 November.   To send feedback, e-mail chante.bohitige@eg.co.uk or tweet @bohitige or @EGPropertyNews View more planning applications in Westminster >> See which agents are doing the most deals in the West End >> Image © Hopkins Architects