After 133 years of facilitating shopping sprees, London said goodbye to the famous Fenwick’s department store on Bond Street. Now, it looks like a rooftop garden could be heading atop the building, as well as new offices and a reimagined retail space.
This comes councillors for Westminster City voted unanimously to back the plans for the now empty building that used to be occupied by Fenwick, which has reportedly been sold for more than £400 million to Lazari Investments, a property firm.
The retail space itself would be reduced in the plans to make way for the office space which will occupy floors two to nine, with the new rooftop garden on top of the building.
In order to implement the plans for a new rooftop garden and office space, a planning committee voted in favour of partially demolishing the building to redevelop it. Lazari Investments has said that it will keep 75 per cent of the old historic façades.
Now that the proposal has been given the green light by Westminster City councillors, they will passed on to Mayor Sadiq Khan for approval, where he will have two weeks to make the decision on whether the project can continue.
Speaking on the application, Westminster planning committee chair Ruth Bush said: “I’m very impressed with this. It’s very uplifting to get an application like this, with the work that has gone into it and the imagination that has gone into it, the engagement with people around [the area] and the opportunities for people in Westminster and around for employment. It’s lovely, it’s great.”
There had previously been objections to the plans by Historic England, who claimed that the site could be home to prehistoric and Civil War archaeology.
The first two floors of the building will remain a retail space. After Fenwick ceased trading on Bond Street, the building remained open for a further week as a multi-charity shop as a temporary pop-up in the old accessories and handbags department.