Morning:
13°c
Cheque, please… Caring told to pay £4.5m in flats deal
Mira Bar-Hillel07.05.09
Restaurateur Richard Caring will today be told to pay more than £4.5 million for affordable homes in return for permission to turn the former US naval offices in Grosvenor Square into 41 flats.
Plans for the conversion were lodged last September by a consortium led by the owner of The Ivy but stalled as they included no affordable housing.
Westminster council then asked an independent financial consultant to consider the proposals. Tonight, councillors are expected to approve Caring's plans in return for £4,548,000 for affordable housing in the borough.
The flats, designed by New York-based French architect Thierry Despont, range from studios to four bedrooms, with 44 underground parking spaces. Mr Despont's plans involve some alterations to the imposing building and the addition of two storeys on its roof.
Caring's consortium bought the block for £250 million last May. By October, after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the developers were claiming the scheme would be unviable if they were forced to build 13 units for social renting. The building was constructed in the Thirties as a block of flats and planning officers said the proposals “would have no materially harmful impact... on visual or residential amenity”.
It is Caring's first property development, although he has a 10 per cent stake in the Candy brothers' stalled plan to build homes in Beverly Hills.
Caring, who is said to be worth about £400 million, is opening restaurants in Dubai and New York this year.
The former naval building stands near the US Embassy, which is moving to Nine Elms. Chelsfield Partners, backed by the Qatar Investment Authority, have emerged as buyers for the embassy building, which could now be listed by heritage minister Barbara Follett.
