Marylebone offices set for potential residential conversion

Heron International poised to acquire International House for £63m

Article posted: 21 Mar 2011

Office space in Marylebone is set to be lost to a residential conversion if Heron International is successful in acquiring International House on Chiltern Street. The high profile property developer is thought to have bid around £63m for the property which is currently in the hands of administrators Deloitte.

Last November H2SO published a report which showed a growing trend to convert offices into homes. The report entitled "The 'Lost' Offices of London's West End" - detailed the growing trend for office space in Central London to be converted for residential use.

In what was the first detailed statistical research into the trend, the study identified more than 4m sq ft of offices within Westminster planning authorities’ boundaries that were converted to other uses between 2001 and 2009. Of this total, around 3m sq ft was converted to residential accommodation while a further 1m sq ft-plus was converted to hotel, leisure and other non-office uses.

At the time there was around 1.8m sq ft of further planning permissions lodged with Westminster for schemes that would also involve the conversion of offices to another use, the report noted that "it is clear that the trend is unlikely to disappear in the medium-term."

The report also detailed how a potential loss of office supply in Central London was offset by new development, particularly in locations neighbouring the core West End. Between 2004 and 2009, Westminster Council estimated that more than 3.2m sq ft of new office space was created within its boundaries (primarily in Paddington). However, in the core West End locations it was estimated that there was a net loss of more than 320,000 sq ft "B1" (office) space between 2004 and 2009.

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Posted by Sara