Bovis has moved St Giles Quarter from preconstruction into full delivery, Construction Enquirer reported Oct. 26, 2026. The £220 million job sits next to the British Museum, on the site of the former Selkirk House Travelodge, and its centerpiece is One Museum Street, a 19-story stepped office tower designed by DSDHA.
Client Simten is bringing the scheme forward with BC Partners. Bovis has been working under a preconstruction agreement since August 2025, and completion is set for June 2029.
Project Scope
The tower will deliver about 170,000 square feet of offices with landscaped terraces, and it’s targeting BREEAM Outstanding. Around it, the masterplan adds 44 homes, 19 of them affordable, plus 16 shops, restaurants and cafés and better public space.
Seven heritage buildings are being kept and restored. The residential pieces sit on High Holborn, Vine Lane and West Central Street. John F Hunt took down the old hotel before main works began.
The consultant team is London-based: Gardiner & Theobald as project manager and cost consultant, Heyne Tillett Steel as structural engineer and Scotch Partners on M&E design. The £220 million figure is the construction value as reported, quoted in sterling.
Why It Matters
Central London offices aren’t an easy start right now. Construction Enquirer ran a forecast the same day warning of a deeper 2026 fall in UK construction and a weaker recovery. A developer committing to main works in that climate is placing a specific bet: that only the best-specified, lowest-carbon space will lease, so it’s worth building the BREEAM Outstanding version or nothing.
It’s a fiddly site, too. The work threads a tower, new homes and seven retained heritage buildings into a small Bloomsbury block a short walk from one of the city’s busiest museums. That means façade retention, tight logistics and a lot of neighbors.
For Bovis, it’s a marquee West End job won through a long preconstruction phase rather than a straight bid. Bovis CEO David Cadiot credited that early work with giving the team a strong platform for delivery. We’ll find out how strong in June 2029, when the tower, the homes and the restored street frontages have to read as one piece of city rather than a tower with some old buildings attached.
Project Team & Details
| Developer | Simten
BC Partners |
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| Owner / Client | Simten (with BC Partners) |
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| Architect | DSDHA |
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| Consultants | Gardiner & Theobald (Project Manager and Cost Consultant)
Heyne Tillett Steel (Structural Engineering)
Scotch Partners (M&E Design) |
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| General Contractor | Bovis |
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| Major Subcontractors | John F Hunt (Demolition) |
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| Status | Under Construction |
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| Sustainability Certification | BREEAM Outstanding (targeted) |
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| Funding Source | Private |
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