LCR ready to put St Pancras interior design out to tender

Interior designers are about to be appointed to create designs for the ambitious retail offering at London’s St Pancras station, as part of its £400m restoration programme.

The 7600 metre squared site will include ‘must see’ venues, such as the longest champagne bar in Europe, a microbrewery and a farmers’ market.

London and Continental Railways, the organisation that controls and manages the building, will invite consultancies to tender ‘within the first part of this year’, says a spokesman.

The retail area will be divided into five distinct zones. These will include: a concourse area, which will feature high street retail outlets targeting commuters; a boutique shopping arcade; a tax-free retailing area and an entertainment section – dubbed Rendez Vous St Pancras – which will include restaurants, bars and live music elements.

Designers will also be drafted in to create one-off installations, which will be scattered throughout the site, to introduce public art elements and a temporary art gallery into the arena.

The aim is to create a leading destination retail and leisure environment within the European travel sector. LCR is currently calling on retailers to tender for sites at the station.

‘The vision is to redefine the concept of what a station is, as a destination in itself. We are now at the stage where we can appoint the interior space designers and we have to make sure we get the right mix of originality, creativity and innovation that works sympathetically with the structure of this iconic London landmark,’ explains Mike Luddy, project director of LCR’s stations and property division.

St Pancras is currently being modernised, to provide a national and international terminal, to service the new Channel Tunnel Rail Link. It sits within a 23ha site, as part of a mixed-use regeneration programme, being developed under the King’s Cross Central masterplan by Allies & Morrison, Porphyrios Associates and Townshend Landscape Architects. St Pancras Chambers, the Grade One-listed building located near Kings Cross station, is being re-envisaged as a five-star Marriott hotel, with a host of bars, leisure facilities, function rooms and new apartments (DW 7 April 2005). An interior designer and lighting consultant will be appointed within the next two weeks, says a spokeswoman for the developer, Manhattan Loft Corporation.

Architects RHWL and Richard Griffiths Architects are working alongside the London Borough of Camden, English Heritage and The Victorian Society to restore the Sir George Gilbert Scott-designed building.

Separately, Lewis Moberly is continuing to develop concepts for an identity to brand St Pancras. The consultancy was appointed to the five-figure project following a three-way pitch against Pentagram and Fortune Street last year (DW 6 October 2005).

It is also designing the brand identity for the new high-speed rail link to Kent.

King’s Cross/ St Pancras Development:

• St Pancras International – interior designers to be appointed

• St Pancras Chambers hotel complex- interior designer and lighting consultant to be appointed

• St Pancras International – brand identity by Lewis Moberly

• Kings Cross Central Masterplan by Allies & Morrison, Porphyrios Associates and Townshead Landscape Architects