Balfour Beatty has announced the award of the £30m London hotel scheme for the citizenM hotel group.

The nine-storey hotel will comprise of 370 luxurious modular bedrooms over eight floors, a ground floor cafe, bar, living room spaces and a SocietyM business club on the eighth and ninth levels.

Traditional construction methods will be used to construct the basement and ground floor. Modular methods will be introduced to levels one to eight with the hotel rooms formed by double length pods with integral corridor sections. These will be constructed and fully finished off site and then craned directly into place by tower cranes. These modular construction methods help to reduce on site construction times and minimise safety hazards.


The new building will be constructed over the exit hall of the Tower Hill London Underground Station. The works will also include two new step free access routes, lifts to the station platforms, and re-landscaping of the adjacent public open space. The uninterrupted operation of the London Underground station is of paramount importance and a combination of regular liaison and operational techniques will be employed by Balfour Beatty to reduce the potential impact of the works.

Located in close proximity to the Tower of London, the site overlooks the world heritage attraction and has the remains of an ancient Roman wall running past it that will be protected throughout the construction phase. A fully boarded and sheeted scaffold frame will encase the Roman wall for the duration of the works, and an exclusion zone will be created to protect the wall from the movement of site plant and equipment. Extensive external works to the hotel and environ of the station will complete the development.

(CD/JP)