Planning permission has been granted for a 175m high, 52-storey tower on London's Southbank which will include the city's third Jumeirah hotel. Number One Blackfriar's Road will be situated next to Blackfriar's Bridge, and is due to open in 2011, in time for the 2012 London Olympics.
The mixed-used development will house the Jumeirah Hotel at Beetham Tower (The Beetham Organisation being the name of the developers), as well as 64 residential apartments and penthouses, several cafes, restaurants and shops, and a two-storey rooftop deck with views across London.
Details of the hotel are still sketchy, but Jumeirah says it will be a 261-room property, with "several restaurants and bars, a spectacular ballroom and variety of meeting spaces, plus a state of the art spa, health and leisure facility".
At 175m the building will be 5m taller than the Telecom Tower, just shorter than the Swiss Re building (aka "The Gherkin"), and some 40m higher than the London Eye. By 2011 the Jumeirah property will be under stiff competition as the tallest hotel in London though, with rival luxury brand Shangri-La signed up as a tenant of the 310m London Bridge Tower (more commonly referred to as "The Shard of Glass"), due to open in the same year.
For more information visit jumeirah.com, shangri-la.com.
Report by Mark Caswell
