History
Just a copy and paste job from Wiki.Previous Tenants
The tower was the headquarters of IPC Media, one of the biggest publishing companies in Europe. In the late 1970s, the tower became part of the mythos surrounding the British comic 2000 AD, published by IPC, and the building was depicted as home to the 'Nerve Centre' of its alien editor, Tharg. IPC moved to the Blue Fin Building in nearby Bankside in 2007.
Redevelopment
In February 2005 the then owners Capital & Counties Properties applied for planning permission with a design by MAKE Architects to remodel the tower by extending it to 34 floors along with replacement buildings for the T-shaped building at its base. Permission was granted in July 2005. However no redevelopment took place.
Capital and Counties sold the property to Simon Halabi's Buckingham Securities in 2006 for a reported £80m.
As part of their joint venture, CIT and Jadwa Investment purchased the property for £60m in 2010. In July 2011 CIT was awarded planning permission to convert the building to residential use along with additional mixed uses. The redevelopment of the building commenced in January 2013. Six new floors were originally planned to be added to the tower, increasing its height to around 128.4 metres (421 ft). The new tower was to house 173 apartments, with retail units to be built around the base and the existing podium building increased in height and transformed into new office space.
In mid 2013, CIT requested permission to increase the tower's height by a further 5 floors (bringing the total to 11) which would bring the tower to 155 metres (509 ft). 18 additional apartments would be made available with this increase. The plans were approved by Southwark councillors on 16 July 2013.
In September 2012 the joint venture secured £250m of funding from a consortium of Middle Eastern financial institutions.
My Visit
After not having done anything worth posting on here for quite a while now (few local cranes), I thought it was really time to do something worthwhile and having my eyes on this for months, it was time!Getting in was a bit of a ball ache, security were sat at 3 spots on the outside surrounding the site. Once in, after trying a few routes to get to the tower stairs, it was fairly straight forward. After seeing previous posts about how long the stairs are, they weren't joking. Half way up the adrenaline had died, we were knackered, out of breath and dripping with sweat. But man, getting up and seeing those views makes it all worth it. It was a beautiful clear night, visibility was great.
A few of the new floors are pretty well under construction, we had a go at going all the way to the 40th floor, but it's just an empty shell and nowhere to get out to see views. Managed to get a couple on the 33rd, but most are on the original top at the 27th. Got so tempted to give the crane a go, but it was too late so we gave it a miss, maybe next time.
On the 33rd floor.
Down on to the 27th floor.
What's been built so far.
Obligatory "we did it" selfie.
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