The Stump is dead: Here’s everything we know about The Pinnacle, London’s next skyline-altering tower
So the Pinnacle, the London skyscraper that never was, looks like it might finally be built.
The tower, on Bishopsgate in the City of London, was nicknamed "the Helter Skelter" because of its twisty design at the top, but met an undignified fate when its developer, Brookfield Multiplex, was forced to abandon work on it during the depths of the recession in 2011.
The plan was for it to rise to 63 storeys, or about 945ft (which would have made it only slightly shorter than the Shard's 1,014 ft) – but in the end it only reached seven storeys before work was abandoned, despite the fact £400m had already been spent on the project. Since then, it's been rather unkindly nicknamed "The Stub".
But Europroperty reported last week that Brookfield is in talks with a consortium of investors led by pension giant Axa to buy the building for £220m. That means work could finally begin again – although even if the deal goes through now and work begins immediately, it's unlikely to be complete until 2018, four years after originally planned.
Source: KPF
The original design for the building included a million square feet of office space and London's highest viewing gallery and restaurant (even higher than the Shard's).
But that looks unlikely to be the result now: if work does begin again, the building could end up looking radically different. The current design involves specially-moulded curved glass panels, which pushed the cost of construction up massively. Originally, the cost of building it was estimated at £550m, although some suggested it could cost as much as £1bn. A review undertaken last year claimed it would be less than that.
Architect industry magazine Building Design reported in September that the original design, by US architects Kohn Pederson Fox Associates (KPF), had been scrapped and a fresh planning application was in the works.
And not surprisingly given the cost, the reports over the weekend suggested if the deal does go through, the project's new owners are likely to change the design of the scheme to bring down its costs. So it may be the end of the Helter Skelter – but the Pinnacle will may now live on.
Source: KPF