Erith to jack up floor slabs after Faithdean’s £130m Fenwick win

Faithdean has won the £130m job to alter and extend retailer Fenwick’s former flagship London store, with a radical plan to jack up entire floor slabs to create higher ceilings.

The scheme, approved by Westminster City Council in April, will see four new stepped floors with terraces added to the existing six neighbouring buildings that make up the property.

Below this extension, facades on three of the existing buildings will be jacked, while five floors in each of the two others will see entire floor slabs lifted up.

Documents submitted by developer Lazari said the work would use “cutting-edge technologies” to achieve raised ceiling heights and align floors to improve accessibility.

The developer won planning consent on the basis that a percentage of the existing structure is reutilised in the proposed new build.

Planning documents submitted on behalf of the firm show that an option to retain 90 per cent of the existing structure was rejected because “the differences in level across the floor plates creates accessibility issues at all levels”.

Instead, the team, which includes architect Foster + Partners and engineering consultant Buro Happold, adopted a design that retains 50 per cent of the existing structure.

The plan is partly achieved by employing subcontractor Erith to bring in 150 jacks across both buildings to raise facades and floor slabs.

One building on Brook Street will see beams separated from columns before being jacked and then reconnected into the existing column.

“The proposed methodology will make no cuts in the slab but will instead raise the entire floor plate sequentially,” a separate document said.

Another of the buildings, Salisbury House, will see Erith employ column jacking, due to the risk of breaking beams from slabs formed from hollow clay tiles.

The Fenwick store closed as a retail outlet at the start of this year after being bought by Lazari for £430m in 2022.

Westminster City Council is currently considering amending its City Plan to require developers to explore retrofit options before demolishing buildings and make higher carbon-offsetting payments.

In March, the High Court overturned housing secretary Michael Gove’s decision to block Marks & Spencer’s controversial Oxford Street redevelopment due to the carbon impact of demolition.