The landlord of the iconic Millbank Tower, where the Labour Party hatched its landslide 1997 election campaign and Leave.EU cooked up its winning plans for Brexit, has begun evicting tenants ahead of a long-planned revamp into luxury flats, City A.M. has learned.
Millbank Tower, a 33-story building on the Embankment that dominates the northern bank of the Thames between Westminster and Pimlico, has been a popular office for politicos, quangos and the third sector for decades.
But according to letter to one of its tenants seen by City A.M., the tower’s landlord has begun the long-anticipated process of converting the building’s office space into high end residential apartments, evicting tenants whose offices are located on the first and second floor of the 119m-tall building.
Tenants of the two floors have been given less than a month to find alternative office space.
The notice, which came from the building’s office provider Citibase, said: “We are writing to inform you that from 13th September 2024 the landlord will no longer be operating a business centre within the building 1st Floor and 2nd Floor.
“This letter serves as formal notice to determine the the tenancy agreement.”
One of the companies served notice was the political research firm Polimonitor, which had only signed its tenancy agreement for the office space in February of this year.
“We’re gutted to be leaving as Millbank Tower is an iconic building which every politico appreciates given its history,” the firm’s CEO Sam Cunningham told City A.M. “Hopefully the redevelopment retains as much of that as possible.”
Citibase did not respond to multiple requests for comment and it is not known what the evictions mean for the rest of the businesses in the tower.
The move is likely to mark the start of the building’s conversion into a new hotel and luxury apartments, the plans for which were approved by the City of Westminster council over eight years ago.
The revamp was driven through by the flat’s billionaire property magnate owners David and Simon Reuben, who bought the site in 2002. It will now be refashioned into 207 new apartments under the proposals, as well as a new hotel and a so-called “Skybar” on the tower’s top floors.