Commercial Property of the Week

REDD, the London-Monaco luxury property company, has received planning permission from Westminster City Council for Mayfair’s first ‘COVID-19 compliant’ mixed-use development at 82 Mount Street, a £40 million (GDV) 10,000 sqft scheme with COVID-19 safeguarding and homeworking features, offering a luxury-brand ground floor retail boutique, lower ground floor offices and five upper floors, providing lateral apartments and a penthouse.

Devised after close consultation between REDD, Grosvenor and Westminster City Council both before and during the UK lockdown, 82 Mount Street is the first major Mayfair property development to receive planning consent since the London housing market was restarted two weeks ago.

With development management by REDD, the project’s professional team includes architectural practice Formation Architects – led by Kees van der Sande the team behind the Glebe and the Lots Road Power Station redesign; Savills, advising on planning and heritage; with specification and interiors by Leo Bertacchini of 1508 London.

82 Mount Street is a landmark freehold end-of-terrace Victorian mansion building, located on the corner of Mount Street and Balfour Place. Construction work to redevelop the property into the new mixed-use scheme will start in the Autumn of 2020 with build completion scheduled for late 2021. Off-plan marketing for the three lateral apartments and duplex penthouse will commence in early 2021.

82 Mount Street will feature a spacious new resident’s lobby for the apartments, accessed from Mount Street. The concierge will be set well back to allow for social distancing rules and the latest technology will be applied to the design of the entire development to minimise physical touch points as much as possible.

For example, the state-of-the-art passenger lifts will be designed to be “no touch”, using contactless fobs and pre-programming IT to ensure that only residents and pre-authorised guests have access to the private apartment floors.

In addition, REDD are looking at contactless fobs and voice recognition systems to provide apartment owners with access to both the main entrance to the development and their private apartments.

Within both the communal areas and private apartment living spaces REDD are looking to make finishes and surfaces from anti-viral materials. For example REDD are exploring using materials such as antibacterial copper for key touch point surfaces – because it kills COVID-19 in just four hours, compared to three days for finishes such as steel. REDD are also looking at installing special air filtration systems for the apartments to ensure the highest standards of health and safety.

Given that days working from home are going to become standard for all, the new apartments at 82 Mount Street are also being designed to provide proper professional facilities for working from home, not just a novelty study space.

The apartments will be fitted out with a commercial Grade-A internet system and are being designed with a desk space which can accommodate a professional work-station set-up, not just a laptop. This means a minimum of 600mm deep space, not just a 400mm writing desk.

This apartment future-proofing is driven by REDD wanting to ensure that their product is ‘best-in-class’ when compared to alternatives, but it is also ensuring the highest standards of COVID-19 prevention since there may be a future shift in UK building regulations to help safeguard for future viruses.

The new ground floor retail boutique is the first new shop on Mount Street to be given planning consented since 2014, creating a total of 56 shops along Mount Street where there are currently 55.

REDD highlight that Mount Street attracts ultra-exclusive luxury brands such as Balcenciaga, Christian Louboutin and Goyard so the new retail space at 82 Mount Street is likely to appeal to an equivalent brand or art gallery seeking a Mayfair HQ.

Russell Smithers, Managing Director of the REDD operation in London says: “82 Mount Street is REDD’s first multi-unit boutique residential scheme in London and the first ‘Covid compliant’ development to get planning consent in Mayfair since the UK lockdown ended, so we anticipate a lot of interest in the project. REDD are delighted to have achieved consent for this landmark Mayfair development, which is the result of us working closely with Grosvenor and Westminster City Council to develop a design that will reinvigorate this important building, whilst still respecting the heritage context’. The proposals will see the retail offering of Mount Street extended further west towards Park Lane, and the creation of Mayfair’s best dressed pied-à-terre’s which are designed to offer the highest standards of luxury, alongside health and safety, in our new COVID-19 world.”

Fronting onto Mount Street and Balfour Place, the mansion building at 82 Mount Street was originally designed in 1891 by Eustace Balfour, the Grosvenor Estate’s architect-in-residence, and built in 1892-1894 in an Anglo-Dutch style in red brick with grand stone entrance portico, projecting bays, stone dressings and Dutch gables.

Originally a vast single mansion between 1948-1984 82 Mount Street served as the international headquarters of the London & Overseas Shipping Line, the oil tanker business owned by the Greek Kulukundis/Mavroleon shipping dynasty, the rivals of Onassis and Niarchos. Over the last three decades the building provided multi-let premises. Now it is being returned to its original residential origins alongside new luxury retail and office accommodation.

For further information on REDD’s activities in London and Monaco contact the Mayfair office on Tel: +44 (0) 2080 164 350 E: london@redd-realestate.com and visit: WWW.REDD-REALESTATE.COM