A new headquarters for Unilever in south west London is set to get the go-ahead this week.
Kingston Council has been recommended to approve both phases of Cube Real Estate and Hathway Opportunity Fund’s £230m Eden Campus scheme.
The first phase will see most of the existing buildings on the Surrey House Island site cleared, including the old Hippodrome nightclub, for two new connected office buildings of nine and 11-storeys, with around 363,000 sq ft of space across them and valued at some £170m. One will be known as the Hive Building, the other the Honey Building – Unilever’s logo includes a bee to represent the company’s “community spirit”.
Unilever will make the Darling Associates-designed offices its new HQ from late 2023/early 2024, bringing together 2,000 employees from five other sites.
There will also be a 354-space car park, with 20% of the spaces for electric cars.
The council’s planning officers said the plans offer “a significant qualitative improvement on the existing office accommodation on site” and will create “increased direct and indirect employment opportunities”.
The second phase, which will be debated at the same council meeting, proposes demolishing Unilever’s seven-storey Lever Building on the same site and building a £60m block of flats of up to 16 storeys and 115 homes, with retail on the ground floor. Those plans are scaled back from initial proposals for a 22-storey resi tower.
Thirty-six of the homes – or 31% of total units – will be affordable, with 20 for social rent and 16 shared ownership.
Planning officers said they had attached “significant weight to the contribution of the scheme to boosting the supply of housing in Kingston, especially given the shortfall in delivery and the need for homes”.
To send feedback, e-mail tim.burke@egi.co.uk or tweet @_tim_burke or @estatesgazette
