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Central Saint Giles
Central Saint Giles is a mixed-use development in central London. Built at a cost of £450 million and completed in May 2010, it was designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano and is his first work in the UK. The development consists of two buildings of up to 15 storeys in height, arranged around a public courtyard lined with shops and restaurants. It is chiefly notable for its façades, covered with 134,000 glazed tiles in vivid shades: orange, red, lime green and a warm yellow. It has attracted a number of high-profile tenants including NBCUniversal, MindShare, and Google.
In January 2022, Google announced plans to purchase the entire building for $1 billion USD.
The development is in the district of St Giles, one block south-east of the east end of Oxford Street. The area was once notorious for being one of the worst slums in London, known as the Rookery – a maze of ramshackle houses, alleys and courtyards inhabited by thousands of destitute people. It was famously depicted by William Hogarth in his 1751 print Gin Lane. Central Saint Giles stands on the site of St Giles Court, an office development erected in the 1950s for the Ministry of Supply and latterly used by the Ministry of Defence (MOD). It consisted of a linked series of brick blocks, six to eight storeys high, arranged in an S-shape around two courtyards to which there was no public access. The grim appearance contributed to the area becoming a magnet for prostitutes and the homeless. The building was owned by Legal & General but was occupied by the MOD on a lease not due to expire until 2011. At the start of the 21st century the MOD made a large consolidation of offices so discontinued the use of several in the capital, including St Giles Court. It vacated the building in April 2005.
The site, a modest urban block, covers 1.75 acres (0.71 ha) bounded by shortened (by pedestrianisation) St Giles High Street, as well as by Earnshall, Bucknall and Dyott Streets and a brief frontage to Shaftesbury Avenue. Partly bounding the north is the 1960s Centre Point tower on New Oxford Street. To the south-west are the 18th-century church of St Giles-in-the-Fields and its churchyard, playground and public gardens forming the block's wholly pedestrianised link to Shaftesbury Avenue. An alike sized space, but a complex hardscaped plaza, stretches to the north west, "St Giles Square", to Tottenham Court Road station.
In 2002, Stanhope and Legal & General appointed the Renzo Piano Building Workshop as architects for an office and residential scheme to replace St Giles Court after its demolition. The St Giles area was subsequently identified by the then Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, as an area for regeneration in his London Plan for the strategic development of the city. Livingstone envisaged St Giles as the site for a cluster of towers alongside the existing Centre Point tower, but this was opposed by Camden council. Although the site is not itself in a conservation area, it is surrounded by conservation areas and the council required the developers to ensure that any new building was in keeping with the height of the surrounding buildings.
Legal & General worked with the local community to secure support for the project, establishing the St Giles Renaissance Forum in 2002 as a focal point for local residents, community groups and stakeholders to collaborate on plans to regenerate St Giles. Plans for the development were unveiled in February 2004 and in January 2005 Legal & General made a planning application to begin construction. The scheme was opposed by a number of local residents' groups which complained that it would constitute an overdevelopment of the site, would put too much strain on local transport and that there was too little residential accommodation on the site.
Planning permission was granted by Camden council in July 2006 after changes were made to the planning application following a public consultation. The height of the development was reduced from the originally proposed 18 storeys. As part of the planning agreement, the developers reached a Section 106 agreement with the council to support improvements to the local area, including tree planting and the redevelopment of the street immediately to the east of the site.
Mitsubishi Estate Co. of Japan formed a joint venture with Legal & General in 2007 to fund the estimated £450 million cost of building Central Saint Giles. In addition to Stanhope acting as the development managers, Jones Lang LaSalle and Cushman & Wakefield are jointly acting as letting agents. Work on the new development began in the same year following the demolition of St Giles Court.
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Central Saint Giles
Central Saint Giles is a mixed-use development in central London. Built at a cost of £450 million and completed in May 2010, it was designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano and is his first work in the UK. The development consists of two buildings of up to 15 storeys in height, arranged around a public courtyard lined with shops and restaurants. It is chiefly notable for its façades, covered with 134,000 glazed tiles in vivid shades: orange, red, lime green and a warm yellow. It has attracted a number of high-profile tenants including NBCUniversal, MindShare, and Google.
In January 2022, Google announced plans to purchase the entire building for $1 billion USD.
The development is in the district of St Giles, one block south-east of the east end of Oxford Street. The area was once notorious for being one of the worst slums in London, known as the Rookery – a maze of ramshackle houses, alleys and courtyards inhabited by thousands of destitute people. It was famously depicted by William Hogarth in his 1751 print Gin Lane. Central Saint Giles stands on the site of St Giles Court, an office development erected in the 1950s for the Ministry of Supply and latterly used by the Ministry of Defence (MOD). It consisted of a linked series of brick blocks, six to eight storeys high, arranged in an S-shape around two courtyards to which there was no public access. The grim appearance contributed to the area becoming a magnet for prostitutes and the homeless. The building was owned by Legal & General but was occupied by the MOD on a lease not due to expire until 2011. At the start of the 21st century the MOD made a large consolidation of offices so discontinued the use of several in the capital, including St Giles Court. It vacated the building in April 2005.
The site, a modest urban block, covers 1.75 acres (0.71 ha) bounded by shortened (by pedestrianisation) St Giles High Street, as well as by Earnshall, Bucknall and Dyott Streets and a brief frontage to Shaftesbury Avenue. Partly bounding the north is the 1960s Centre Point tower on New Oxford Street. To the south-west are the 18th-century church of St Giles-in-the-Fields and its churchyard, playground and public gardens forming the block's wholly pedestrianised link to Shaftesbury Avenue. An alike sized space, but a complex hardscaped plaza, stretches to the north west, "St Giles Square", to Tottenham Court Road station.
In 2002, Stanhope and Legal & General appointed the Renzo Piano Building Workshop as architects for an office and residential scheme to replace St Giles Court after its demolition. The St Giles area was subsequently identified by the then Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, as an area for regeneration in his London Plan for the strategic development of the city. Livingstone envisaged St Giles as the site for a cluster of towers alongside the existing Centre Point tower, but this was opposed by Camden council. Although the site is not itself in a conservation area, it is surrounded by conservation areas and the council required the developers to ensure that any new building was in keeping with the height of the surrounding buildings.
Legal & General worked with the local community to secure support for the project, establishing the St Giles Renaissance Forum in 2002 as a focal point for local residents, community groups and stakeholders to collaborate on plans to regenerate St Giles. Plans for the development were unveiled in February 2004 and in January 2005 Legal & General made a planning application to begin construction. The scheme was opposed by a number of local residents' groups which complained that it would constitute an overdevelopment of the site, would put too much strain on local transport and that there was too little residential accommodation on the site.
Planning permission was granted by Camden council in July 2006 after changes were made to the planning application following a public consultation. The height of the development was reduced from the originally proposed 18 storeys. As part of the planning agreement, the developers reached a Section 106 agreement with the council to support improvements to the local area, including tree planting and the redevelopment of the street immediately to the east of the site.
Mitsubishi Estate Co. of Japan formed a joint venture with Legal & General in 2007 to fund the estimated £450 million cost of building Central Saint Giles. In addition to Stanhope acting as the development managers, Jones Lang LaSalle and Cushman & Wakefield are jointly acting as letting agents. Work on the new development began in the same year following the demolition of St Giles Court.