Holborn hotel would be built on site of mothballed Bryan Avery scheme
Sheppard Robson has submitted plans for a 12-storey hotel on Holborn Viaduct in the City of London that it says will have Europe’s biggest green wall.
The practice’s proposals for Dominvs Group would deliver a 382-room hotel with a roof terrace opposite City Thameslink Station.
Sheppard Robson said its 55m building would replace a disused 10-storey office block on the site. The new structure will have four basement levels, three of which will host around 3,700sq m of office and meeting space for SMEs.
An earlier consent for a hotel almost as tall designed by Avery Associates lapsed this summer.
Sheppard Robson said the new building would have a 3,700sq m green wall covering its entire façade, and which would boast 400,000 plants.
It said the plants would provide seven tonnes of fresh air every year and extract nine tonnes of carbon dioxide.
A planning statement submitted in support of the application by consultant DP9 said the Sheppard Robson proposals represented “exceptional quality design” that had been generated following considerable review and assessment of the adjacent Smithfield and Newgate conservation areas.
“The existing building has been vacant for a number of years and the floorspace as currently configured and specified does not meet the requirements of modern commercial organisations,” it said.
“The proposed development represents a unique opportunity to enhance and revitalise a prominent site within the City and to deliver a genuinely iconic building at the entrance to the Culture Mile, providing a new high-quality hotel, restaurant/bar and modern, SME-purposed workspace with associated public realm improvements.”
Nearby listed buildings include the grade I church of St Sepulchre-without-Newgate and grade II-listed Holborn Viaduct.
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