The City of London’s newest, and highest, addition to its skyline was built using a JCT Major Project Construction Contract.
The 230m high Heron Tower, completed earlier this year, replaced Tower 42, the former NatWest Tower, as the City’s highest building. It is the third-highest building in London after Canary Wharf and The Shard, due for completion next year and a project also using a JCT form of contract.
Designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox, Heron Tower is 46 storeys tall with a restaurant, sky bar and public terrace at the top of the building, all accessible directly from Bishopsgate below. In addition to the six double-deck external lifts, there are four internal double-deck scenic lifts for the less faint hearted.
The building is marketed as a ‘six-star advanced business life environment’ and uses a series of three-floor ‘villages’, each with its own three-floor high atrium, aimed at ‘boutique’ finance firms in the city. The tower’s main reception boasts Europe’s largest aquarium. It contains 1,200 fish and an entire sustainable ecosystem modelled on the majesty and biodiversity of Heron Island’s coral reef in Australia. The south elevation of the tower is covered with solar photovoltaic panels – at 3,200 square metres, it is the UK’s second largest installation.
Construction of the building, which provides 40,836 sq m of commercial office space, was undertaken by Skanska, and started in April 2008, the building topped out in April 2010, and completed in March 2011.
Commenting on Heron Tower’s completion, Gerald Ronson, chief executive of Heron International, said: “Heron Tower has taken more than 12 years from conception to completion but the results speak for themselves: this is a truly exceptional office development in one of the world’s best locations.”
In January 2010 the Heron Tower was awarded a BREEAM rating of Excellent.