Scheme due before Camden planners next year

Stanhope is hoping to submit plans for the new British Library building designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners next year.

The firm and Japanese developer Mitsui Fudoson, which owns a one-third stake in Stanhope, signed a deal with the library to develop the 700,000 ft虏 site earlier this year.

RSHP won the job two years ago and work will involve putting up a new building at a site between the existing grade I-listed structure and the Francis Crick Institute near King鈥檚 Cross station. QS on the deal is Alinea while Arup is engineer.

The job has been held up by plans to build a new station for the proposed Crossrail 2 line underneath the plot.

But Stanhope construction director Tony Wall said it was looking at sending in plans to Camden council in 2020.

He said the job had a 拢400m construction pricetag. 鈥淎 lot of the work is in the ground,鈥� he added. 鈥淲e鈥檒l be talking to contractors towards the end of next year.鈥�

The new building will house state-of-the-art facilities for British Library learning, business and exhibition spaces, a new northern entrance to the library and a new headquarters for the national institute for data science and artificial intelligence, known as The Alan Turing Institute.

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Source: Shutterstock

The library is used by more than 1.5 million people a year

Meanwhile, Wall said he expected to appoint more consultants to a huge life sciences development at Royal Street close to St Thomas鈥� Hospital in Southwark that it won earlier this year.

The firm beat Canary Wharf Group and Landsec to the 1.8 million ft虏 scheme where AHMM is masterplanner, Alinea the QS and Arup the engineer.

Wall said: 鈥淥ther engineers and architects will be involved in it.鈥� 

The scheme is expected to take up to 10 years to build out.

Wall said the developer was at the start of a 鈥減urple patch鈥� of upcoming work which has seen it secure a pipeline amounting to 8.6 million ft虏 over the next decade.

Other schemes include the next phases of the Selfridges redevelopment on London鈥檚 Oxford Street and the scheme to revamp the former Television Centre at White City in west London.

Read tomorrow鈥檚 黑洞社区 for Stanhope interview

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