...The Twenty Twenties
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Time and technology has overtaken the BT Tower, and its revered status as an icon of British Telecommunications is drawing to a close. |
When BT sold-off its property estate in 2001, the London BT Tower was one about 220 selected buildings to be retained. This applied to several of the quirky (uniquely designed) important operational London premises such as Mondial House, Keybridge, and Faraday Building(s). Mondial and Keybridge were once vast bastions of telephone exchange provision in what was still the Cold War era, but have been sold for redevelopment in recent decades. The BT Tower is aging, and current technology has removed its primary purpose which was the transmission of microwave signals across the UK. The TV switching centre remains a flagship service to distribute programmes between studios and transmitters, but with low-loss optical fibre cables, the location isn't as crucial as it was at the time when the Tower complex was built.
"In December 2001, as part of a wider property outsourcing arrangement, BT completed the sale and leaseback of the majority of its UK properties to Telereal, a joint venture partnership formed by Land Securities Trillium and The William Pears Group. Around 6,700 properties were transferred totalling some 5.5 million square metres." [Quote from BT's Report 2002.]
The disposal of BT Tower is inevitable.
More to be added.
2024
Sale Agreed
On 21 February 2024, BT Group announced it had agreed to sell the Tower to MCR Hotels for £275 million. The development is expected to be designed by the Heatherwick Studio, although it is anticipated that it will take BT approximately five years to reconfigure its network to be able to vacate.
‘Payment for the sale will be made over multiple years, as BT Group equipment is progressively removed from the building, with final payment on completion of the purchase.’ [BT Newsroom.]
References
More soon.
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