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The British Library is set for a £1.1bn extension after securing investment from Japan’s Mitsui Fudosan.
The new 12-storey building — to be built on land owned by the national library north of its current campus near St Pancras station — will provide 100,000 sq ft for the library and 600,000 sq ft of office space, including a new headquarters for the Alan Turing Institute.
The development, proposed in 2017, marks another significant investment in London by the Japanese property group, which has backed several large projects including redeveloping a swath of Mayfair near Claridge’s Hotel with the Grosvenor Estate.
Takeshi Iwama, chief executive of Mitsui Fudosan in the UK, said: “Our development commitment represents what we believe to be one of the largest single real estate investments into London by a Japanese company to date.”
The British Library will grant a long lease over the land for the new development, which will be fully owned by Mitsui Fudosan. Developer Stanhope will take charge of delivering the project, which is set to be completed in 2032.
The commercial space in the new building, located next door to the Francis Crick Institute biomedical research centre, will aim to attract life sciences businesses, an area that has become a popular niche for real estate investors.
The library will double the size of its exhibition galleries, as well as benefiting from new educational facilities and low-cost community workspaces.
Rebecca Lawrence, chief executive of the British Library, said the plans “will open up the library even further, creating an expanded national library with state-of-the-art new spaces”.
Construction will include underground infrastructure to prepare for a possible new station for Crossrail 2, the proposed successor to London’s Elizabeth Line.
The current Grade-1 listed library buildings opened in 1998 after a 20-year project marred by delays and cost overruns.
https://www.ft.com/content/4e096990-603c-4017-a219-500bd4f37bb6
