黑洞社区

Mace is emerging as frontrunner in the race to build an office and life sciences centre opposite King鈥檚 Cross station in London, 黑洞社区 understands.

The firm is believed to have pipped rivals ISG and Bam to become preferred bidder for the 拢150m deal, known as the Merck building, which will be the UK headquarters of global healthcare giant MSD.

It comes as Mace has also been appointed preferred bidder on a 拢150m scheme to redevelop a building on London鈥檚 Berkeley Square called Lansdowne House, having first edged ahead of rivals Multiplex and Laing O鈥橰ourke to the job two months ago.

Merck developer Precis Group鈥檚 10-storey building, which has been designed by architect AHMM, will be built on an Access self-storage warehouse on the Euston Road.

General Demolition is already on site having been appointed to knock down the current low-rise art deco building called Belgrove House.

Others working on the scheme include QS Alinea, project manager CPC, structural engineer AKT II and services engineer Atelier Ten.

Mace鈥檚 appointment is for the shell and core only with the fit-out expected to cost a further 拢150m.

Precis said laboratories make up around 40% of the building鈥檚 total floorspace with associated office, research and 鈥榳rite-up鈥� space at levels four to nine.

MSD, which is known as Merck outside Europe, is the only tenant of the building.

The site is within London鈥檚 鈥楰nowledge Quarter鈥� and close to the Francis Crick biomedical research institute built by Laing O鈥橰ourke and designed by PLP and HOK.

The Knowledge Quarter, the area around King鈥檚 Cross, the Euston Road and Bloomsbury, also includes the Wellcome Trust and the British Library which is being redeveloped to include life sciences. A planning application for the British Library scheme, which is being masterminded by Stanhope to plans drawn up by RSHP. is due to be submitted to Camden planners in the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, the Lansdowne House scheme is being run by development manager CO-RE and will involve replacing the current building, built in 1987 by Chapman Taylor, with a new commercial building that was OK鈥檇 by Westminster council in autumn 2020.

AHMM is also behind this proposal which will feature 10 storeys of office space running across 225,000 sq ft.

CO-RE, which is behind the stalled ITV studios job on London鈥檚 South Bank as well as the 120 Fleet Street scheme which Lendlease is building, said the scheme will have 14,000 sq ft of retail and restaurants on the ground floor while public realm improvements are also planned. The new project will include 480 cycle spaces with showers, lockers and changing facilities.

Others working on the project include QS Alinea, structural engineer AKT II, building services engineer Aecom and planning consultant Gerald Eve.