Minerva Building

The Minerva Building is a skyscraper being planned for the eastern edge of London's main financial district, the City of London. If built, it will be the first building in the City of London to contain more than 1,000,000 sq ft of office space.

A revised planning application by developers Minerva plc for the 53-storey version was submitted during the week ending July 12 2002. The original proposal for the site, known as the St. Botolph's House, was a 14-storey office block. In 2001 this was revised to a 36-storey, 159m tall office tower. A post-September 11 revision brought structural and design changes and a further increase in height, to 53 floors and 217m.

Its location marks the eastern gateway to the City and the building will act as a focus for the regeneration of the eastern City fringe. The site is outside the strategic views of St. Paul's, is not within a conservation area and does not contain listed buildings. It lies outside two of the three proposed viewing cones for the Tower of London, and whilst it falls inside the third, so do 30 St Mary Axe, 110 Bishopsgate, Tower 42 and the other towers of the existing and emerging City skyline.

Although the official height is 217m, the building has planning permission for an antenna which could see its pinnacle height rise to 247 metres. A restaurant will be open to the public on the highest floor.

In March 2006, amidst the Cash for Peerages political scandal, it emerged that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister had not called in the application for the Minerva Building (nor Minerva's Park Place proposals in Croydon) shortly after two of Minerva's senior figures had made major donations and loans to the Labour Party. This led some commentators to make a connection between the loans and the decision.

External links

• Minerva official site
• Skyscrapernews.com building details