London gastro destination Borough Market could be getting a ‘Covent Garden’ style neighbour: a £300m retail hub, with offices and an art house cinema.
Plans have been submitted to transform the 3-acre site west of the market. This includes the vaulted-Victorian railway arches – currently home to wine specialist Vinopolis – as well as a car park and an old warehouse.
‘For all its pulling power, Southwark lacks fashion and needs a wider mix of shops,’ says Tim Sherwood, who is developing the 200,000 sq ft project with investment fund Meyer Bergman. ‘We’re creating as many as 50 new spaces and predict a ripple effect that will continue through the back streets of SE1.’
Designs for the new buildings are ‘influenced by the surrounding architecture,’ says Trevor Morris of SPPARC Architecture – which is working on the project – and take cues from neighbourhood’s cobbled roads and brick-dominated streetscape.
Lost medieval north/south pedestrian links through the 200,000 sq ft site would also be reinstated, along with Elizabethan street names including Dirt Lane and Soap Street.
Construction could start as early as next spring.
