U.S. Boutique Bank Looks At £1B All-Electric Victoria Office Lease
U.S.-based boutique investment bank Evercore is in discussions to take a major headquarters at 105 Victoria Street, the site of a former House of Fraser department store, CoStar reports.
Currently housed across several buildings at Stanhope Gate near Hyde Park, the bank has been searching for new premises with adviser Colliers and is reportedly interested in what will be the largest all-electric office in the UK, according to developer Welput, the specialist central London office fund managed by BentallGreenOak.
Welput bought the building in 2005 for £103M and recapitalised and secured a £400M development finance facility from Canada’s Public Sector Pension Investment Board and Allianz Real Estate, now Pimco Prime Real Estate, in March 2022. Madison International Reality also invested in the property in the same year.
Welput said at the time of the decision to move forward with the development that it demonstrated its confidence in the London office market and underlined the “critical importance of developing assets with ground-breaking ESG credentials in order to attract the next generation of occupiers.”
Completion is expected in the second quarter of 2026, and the plan by architect Kohn Pederson Fox Associates and interior architect Henning Larsen will comprise circa 450K SF of workspace, including 5,500 SF for incubator and affordable space and over 30K SF of retail, and the building will have a gross development value of £1B, Welput estimated.
The company said it will achieve net-zero operation and construction, and BGO has pledged to the development’s energy being supplied from fully renewable sources, with no gas supply and no diesel generator on-site.
The building has been designed to meet an energy performance certificate A rating and WELL Platinum certification and to exceed the Royal Institute of British Architects 2030 sustainability target. BGO said it is also the UK’s first office building to target a combined BREEAM Outstanding and 5.5-star NABERS rating.
It will also provide almost 30K SF of green space and terracing, plus what Welput described as a 200-metre “walk and talk” track and an urban farm with community allotments.
Neither Evercore nor Welput commented on the possible relocation.
