Canadian and Riverside Estates has received planning permission to refurbish and extend Bishops Palace House on the banks of the River Thames in Kingston.
The monolithic brick structure, which dates back to the late 1970s, is located in Kingston’s old town conservation area and provides more than 100,000 sq ft of F&B, retail and office space.
Reed Watts Architects has been working on the project since 2019 and its proposals for the building “refine the tenure mix, reconfiguring the existing accommodation to deliver an exciting set of new spaces with minimum disruption to the existing tenants and the riverside”.
It is anticipated that retrofitting the existing building rather than knocking down and rebuilding it will save more than 5,000 tonnes of carbon.
Greg Miles from Canadian and Riverside Estates said: “Working in this historic part of London, there have been numerous challenges to get the project to this stage but thanks to a great team effort led by Reed Watts, we are now able to press ahead with our exciting plans to re-energise this important riverside building for the future of Kingston.”
Jim Reed from Reed Watts Architects added: “As an architect and local resident this has been a real labour of love for myself and the practice. The idiosyncratic building provides a wonderful, albeit complicated, canvas to work with and I’m delighted to be pursuing a retrofit that’s the best option for sustainability, heritage and community.”
