5 & 6 St James’s Square

Having owned and occupied these buildings situated in one of London’s most prestigious addresses, Rio Tinto’s aspirations to redevelop them culminated in a complex project to secure planning consent and deliver 13 high-end private apartments, 115,000 sqft of grade A office accommodation and the refurbishment of the historic Grade II* No. 5 St James’s Square.

No.6 was a 1960’s office building of limited architectural merit in this historic part of London. A Dixon Jones led scheme secured its redevelopment and the replacement of the former headquarters of Rio Tinto to deliver something far more contextual and in keeping with the Square.

The speculative office scheme was built over ground plus 6 upper floors with two entrances; one from St James’s Square and the other from Babmaes Street. The office space was one of the first in London to achieve a Platinum LEED Certificate. The 13 high end flats, designed by Johnson Naylor and accessed from Babmaes Street, were all sold off plan to a private investor. The listed No.5 was refurbished to a shell and core with much of its valued (and listed) contents being stored off site during the construction period.

The complexities of developing adjacent to and within buildings with statutory protection; significant third-party issues; a constrained site logistically (compounded by traffic closures due to the 2012 London Olympics); and the concurrent redevelopment of the adjacent site made the completion of this project on time and on budget in March 2014 a very real achievement.