Fitzroy Place is an office, residential and retail estate in

Fitzrovia Fitzrovia () is a district of central London, England, near the West End. The eastern part of area is in the London Borough of Camden, and the western in the City of Westminster. It has its roots in the Manor of Tottenham Court, and was urban ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

. With 289 homes, with interiors designed by Johnson Naylor, and 220,000 sq ft of office space, Fitzroy Place houses a series of shops and restaurants, offices and community spaces, set around a publicly accessible central square. The square, which was the first new garden square in W1 for 100 years, incorporates the Grade II* listed

Fitzrovia Chapel The Fitzrovia Chapel is situated in Pearson Square, in the centre of the Fitzroy Place development, bordered by Mortimer Street, Cleveland Street, Nassau Street and Riding House Street in Fitzrovia, Westminster. The chapel was designed by John Lo ...

. Developed from the former Middlesex Hospital site, it was originally to be known as Noho Square, presumably a backformation from 'North' i.e. north of Oxford Street, as if Soho (which is located south of Oxford St) were derived from 'South'. The name, chosen by the Candy brothers for the development, was widely disliked. Redevelopment was halted by the global

financial crisis A financial crisis is any of a broad variety of situations in which some financial assets suddenly lose a large part of their nominal value. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many financial crises were associated with banking panics, and man ...

, as an Icelandic bank was the biggest shareholder, but the project has now been taken on by

Aviva Aviva plc is a British multinational insurance company headquartered in London, England. It has about 18 million customers across its core markets of the United Kingdom, Ireland and Canada. In the United Kingdom, Aviva is the largest general ...

Investors and Exemplar Properties, who subsequently sold their stake to AshbyCapital. The NoHo Square name was dropped and the scheme became known as Fitzroy Place. The offices at 2 Fitzroy Place are let to multiple tenants, with 12,866 sq ft available on the fourth floor, while 1 Fitzroy Place is fully let to cosmetics firm Estée Lauder. Retail and restaurant tenants include Percy & Founders and Detox Kitchen.

History

A Guernsey-based consortium of the Icelandic

Kaupthing Bank Kaupthing Bank ( is, Kaupþing banki; ) was a major international Icelandic bank, headquartered in Reykjavík, Iceland. It was taken over by the Icelandic government during the 2008–2011 Icelandic financial crisis and the domestic Icelandic ...

, the Candy brothers' CPC Group (33%) and

Richard Caring Richard Allan Caring (born 4 June 1948) is a British businessman. He initially built a business, International Clothing Designs, supplying Hong Kong-manufactured fashion to UK retailers. After surviving the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, he di ...

(10%) bought the Middlesex site from

University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH) is an NHS foundation trust based in London, United Kingdom. It comprises University College Hospital, University College Hospital at Westmoreland Street, the UCH Macmillan Cancer C ...

for £175m in June 2006. The demolition was completed in late 2008. When Kaupthing went into administration, the Candys swapped their stake in NoHo Square for Kaupthing's share of another joint development in Beverley Hills. The project was being carried out by Ken Shuttleworth's agency 'Make' alongside developers 'Project Abbey', with developers Candy and Candy handling the fit-out. Kaupthing rejected a bid worth £60m from

Ian and Richard Livingstone London & Regional Properties (L&R) is a private real estate and leisure investment firm based in London, United Kingdom. It is one of the largest privately held principal investors in Europe, performing private equity style investments in direct p ...

’s

London & Regional Properties London & Regional Properties (L&R) is a private real estate and leisure investment firm based in London, United Kingdom. It is one of the largest privately held principal investors in Europe, performing private equity style investments in direct ...

. In March 2010 Kaupthing appointed CB Richard Ellis to sell their remaining stake.

Aviva Investors Aviva Investors is an asset management company and is part of the Aviva group. History The London unit, previously known as Morley, was founded in 1971 as Geoffrey Morley and Partners. This was bought by Globe Investment in 1988 and then sold to ...

and Exemplar Properties acquired the site in July 2010. The consortium appointed architects

Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands is a practice of architects, urban designers and masterplanners established in 1986 and practising out of London. History Alex Lifschutz and Ian Davidson met working on the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank Headquarters ...

and

Sheppard Robson Sheppard Robson (previously Richard Sheppard, Robson & Partners ) is a British architecture firm, founded in 1938 by Sir Richard Herbert Sheppard, with offices in London, Manchester, and Glasgow]. It was particularly influential in the 1950s– ...

to design a new masterplan with luxury residential and office buildings. The scheme was granted planning in March 2012. Fitzroy Place completed in 2015. In 2016, AshbyCapital purchased a 50% stake in the development from Kaupthing. Residential part of Fitzroy Place has been managed by Qube Leasehold Property Management Ltd. since its opening in 2015. It consists of 3 buildings with 289 multimillion apartments.

References

{{coord, 51.5190, -0.1379, type:landmark_region:GB-CMD, display=title

External links

Fitzroy Place

Fitzroy Place architectural statement
Buildings and structures in the London Borough of Camden Redevelopment projects in London Fitzrovia