Lord Foster has produced a striking design for the site of Sainsbury's Stamford Street headquarters, at the south end of Blackfriars Bridge, opposite Ludgate House, the home of Express Newspapers. The proposed office building features a tapering 'neck' supporting several office floor above a podium.

Computer generated image of the new development.
Visualisation by Hayes Davidson

Around 3,000 staff work at Stamford Street which was originally built as a head office and depot in 1890. Sainsbury's is moving later this year to a new head office on the other side of the river where staff will have to contend not with live journalists but the ghosts of Robert Maxwell's employees. Holborn Place is another Foster building, constructed on the site of the old Daily Mirror building.

Holborn Place

The move to Holborn will allow Sainsbury's to consolidate from the 13 buildings they currently occupy across London and introduce more open plan working. The changes are part of a rapid business transformation programme introduced by Group Chief Executive Peter Davis.

The supermarket group submitted plans for the redevelopment of its SE1 site last week. In addition to the £200m Foster building, Sainsbury's is seeking permission to develop a £70m office block on a car park in nearby Meymott Street. The two schemes will provide a total of 46,500 sq m (500,000 sq ft) of space in the rapidly developing corridor along the south-side of the Thames.

It is still not clear whether Sainsbury's will remain in Holborn or return south of the river once the Stamford Street development is completed in 2004. The company told i-FM it wishes to keep its options open and says it is not free to comment on the terms on which it will occupy Holborn Place. Either way, Sainsbury's will raise considerable capital through the sale of its old headquarters.

Richard Byatt