South Bank Tower
History
History
South Bank Tower (formerly King's Reach Tower until 2013) is a high-rise building in Stamford Street, Southwark, London. It is a thirty storey structure 111 metres (364 ft) high and was completed in 1972, designed by the architect Richard Seifert and built by John Laing Construction Limited. As of 2013, the tower is undergoing extensive redevelopment.
The tower is a Brutalist-style building that was common at the time of its construction. The tower is similar in design to Tower 42, which was designed by the same architect.
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[5] 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.[7] However no redevelopment took place.
Capital and Counties sold the property to Simon Halabi's Buckingham Securities in 2006 for a reported £80m.[4]
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
I had been wanting to visit this building for months, had quite a few invites but work always got in the way! The opportunity finally arose and visited with Southside Assassin & Els, two top blokes! it was quite last minute so we didn't have as much time as planned up on the top, so excuse the lack of photographs but nevertheless it was still a nice explore, those stairs do take it out of you though, and I was pleased to see it wasn't just me that was a bit out of breath lol.
On the top there is quite a lot of work going on, apparently more floors being added, if the wiki page is to be believed, it is an amazing view and I could have sat up there for 10hrs snapping away, perhaps another time, first night photography shots, hope you like them.
I had been wanting to visit this building for months, had quite a few invites but work always got in the way! The opportunity finally arose and visited with Southside Assassin & Els, two top blokes! it was quite last minute so we didn't have as much time as planned up on the top, so excuse the lack of photographs but nevertheless it was still a nice explore, those stairs do take it out of you though, and I was pleased to see it wasn't just me that was a bit out of breath lol.
On the top there is quite a lot of work going on, apparently more floors being added, if the wiki page is to be believed, it is an amazing view and I could have sat up there for 10hrs snapping away, perhaps another time, first night photography shots, hope you like them.
Thanks for looking!
