A 700-year-old church tower will remain suspended almost 14m above ground while Multiplex builds a 36-storey office at Fifty Fenchurch Street in the City of London.
Engineers placed the tower of All Hallows Staining Church on stilts above a 5,500 sq m excavation following the removal of more than 125,000 tonnes of earth and ground material.
A bottoming-out ceremony on 23 September marked the occasion by casting a concrete cornerstone plinth that will support the medieval tower, which was built around 1320.
Multiplex is the main contractor of the 60,000 sq m high-rise designed by Eric Parry Architects and developed by Investment firm AXA IM Alts.
Scheduled for completion in 2028, Fifty Fenchurch Street aims to be “one of the lowest carbon and most biodiverse” high-rise towers in the UK.
Laing O’Rourke’s design for manufacture and assembly (DfMA) facility, Explore Manufacturing, will supply 68,000 sq m of low-carbon concrete planks for the development.
“Fifty Fenchurch Street is a remarkable project and I am delighted to attend this unique ceremony that marks a significant construction milestone for this 36-storey flagship development,” said Howard Dawber, deputy mayor of London for business and growth, at the bottoming-out ceremony.
“Development projects like this one in the City of London highlight our capital’s position as a world-leading destination for leading businesses to invest. There is clearly huge appetite from global industries to invest in London, and the mayor and I are proud to welcome new development projects in our city as we work together to build a better, more prosperous London for everyone.”
Tom Sleigh, chairman of the City of London Corporation planning and transportation committee, added: “Nobody values the Square Mile’s heritage more than the City Corporation, and we’re delighted at the lengths the Fifty Fenchurch project team
have gone through to preserve the medieval Lambe’s Chapel Crypt and All Hallows Staining Church.”
