BT Tower being sold off to US hotel chain!

[Buzby]

One of London’s iconic buildings is being sold to an American investor £275m for conversion to a hotel by IMG group. Just announced on BBC radio, this news really affected me as This building was always something I looked up to (!) especially as it opened as a technology centre that switched most of the UK’s TV signals to the transmission network!

Designed and opened as the GPO Tower in 1965 by Harold Wilson. Later the Post Office Tower then the BT Tower it has appeared on stamps, featured in an episode of the Goodies, and had a lower observation floor blown out during a terrorist attack before the revolving restaurant and public access was discontinued. I had a visit scheduled the day after the 1971 explosion - my photo shows the damage.

By necessity, the central core carries emergency stairs and the 2 lifts, so the remaining floor space on each of the floors will be pretty tight - but with great views!

 

[dangie]

I remember going up to the viewing gallery back in the 1960’s.

 

[AlterEgo]

Good. I hope they convert it into a landmark property and it'll be good for the public to have access once again!

 

[75A]

I worked for B.T for 35 years and went there a few times, my abiding memory were the lifts, coming down your stomach got there before you did.

 

[dgl]

How can they sell something that doesn't exist?

Though seriously I hope the revolving restaurant will be a feature of the hotel.

 

[Buzby]

How can they sell something that doesn't exist?

It may have opened in 1964, but as you note - wasn’t allowed to appear on any maps until the late 70’s! Clearly civil servants knew we needed protecting!

 

[Thirteen]

I'm surprised it hadn't happened sooner.

 

[Kite159]

Good to see it getting a new lease of life, although chances are rooms will be at least £200+ a night so out of reach for many.

 

[LucyP]

It will be far more than £200 a night. You can only get a Travelodge in Central London on cheap nights for under £200. You cannot buy a building for £275M and convert it into a hotel in that location and charge £200 a night. The last luxury hotel to open in London was the Peninsula. That is £1K per night minimum. The Brooklands restaurant, themed on the aircraft history of Brooklands (I won't spoil the lift experience for anyone) already has a 2 Michelin stars. There is bound to be the same aspiration at the BT Tower.

 

[jon81uk]

Its being done by https://www.mcrhotels.com/ MCR who did the TWA Hotel https://www.twahotel.com/hotel at JFK so I am expecting something equally in-keeping with the buildings heritige.

 

[uglymonkey]

I think the revolving restaurant doesn't work anymore ( apart from the restaurant is closed) is that the IRA blew it up and the mechanism doesn't work anymore.

 

[jon81uk]

I think the revolving restaurant doesn't work anymore ( apart from the restaurant is closed) is that the IRA blew it up and the mechanism doesn't work anymore.

There was an IRA bomb, but that did not cause the restaurant to stop spinning and it was invite only until 1981 when it closed for good.

TV stations, bomb attacks and year-round strawberries: the story of the BT Tower

The landmark became a popular attraction as soon as it opened, despite it technically being a state secret for decades

www.theguardian.com

 

[dgl]

I believe people have had tours of the tower and the revolving restaurant has been shown to be working. I suppose despite it not being used anymore it has to be kept in working condition as it's part of the fabric of the building.

 

[70F]

I worked for a contractor doing repairs and refurbishment on three seperate occasions during the 1980s and early 1990s. We refurbished what had been the revolving restaurant area, turning it into an area to be used for corporate entertainment, and the floor still revolved. Whilst engaged on a contract to refurbish the external balustrades on the floors where the old aerials and antennas used to be situated, below the old viewing gallery, I got to know the riggers responsible for the maintenance of all the aerials, and was invited to go higher than members of the public could ever get by climbing the aerial mast on the top of the tower. We also carried out repairs to the underside of the floor slab that had been damaged by the bomb, which involved a specialist contractor erecting a fan scaffold to get us access - quite a few of the guys didn’t want to work out there, it at the time, I loved it for the great views to be had, and remember watching the traffic in out of St Pancras and seeing a pair of 20s arrive on a van train. The old viewing gallery floor had a crane rail installed for lifting aerials etc. and there was about 200mm difference in packing under the rail one side where the bomb blast had been and the slab had deflected. As previous posters have commented, there’s not a huge amount of room between the inner core and the outside on the old tower equipment floors, it will be interesting to see how they configure the rooms.

 

[Busaholic]

It may have opened in 1964, but as you note - wasn’t allowed to appear on any maps until the late 70’s! Clearly civil servants knew we needed protecting!

I believe that to be a myth. When trolleybuses served the area up to 1961 they terminated at Tottenham Court Road, Maple Street, but the replacement Routemaster buses showed TCR, Howland Street on their destination blinds. This changed to TCR, Post Office Tower before the end of the '60s, so a bit of a giveaway!

 

[87 027]

I think the revolving restaurant doesn't work anymore ( apart from the restaurant is closed) is that the IRA blew it up and the mechanism doesn't work anymore.

I was in the revolving restaurant in November 2023 for a private event hosted by BT and it was working fine then!

 

[AndrewE]

Re the thread title, I wonder whether this is selling off the family silver again, or just another London Bridge - by which I mean relieving a gulllible Yank of loads of money for an "asset" we no longer need?

 

[Buzby]

I think the revolving restaurant doesn't work anymore ( apart from the restaurant is closed) is that the IRA blew it up and the mechanism doesn't work anymore.

Nice idea, but no. When the contract for the restaurant ended, the Telco converted the space into an exhibition events area (by invitation only). Indeed Noel Edmond’s did quite a few Xmas shows from there for the BBC. The rotating floor was cantilevered out from the central core and single 1Kw electric motor was all that was required to make it rotate - taking around 20minutes for a full 360.

The mechanism wasn’t affected by the IRA attack (which was a parcel bomb left on the lowest of the 3 viewing floors) - 2 floors down from the events floor (see my photo above) over 10 metres distant. My last visit there was for a BT corporate event/launch on 25th November ‘92 and we all got a thrill when they switched on the rotation. It was certainly still working 20 years later!

Re the thread title, I wonder whether this is selling off the family silver again

They don’t use it, and looking at their share price, they’re still trying to make the money back that they lost with BT Sport.

 

[jon81uk]

Re the thread title, I wonder whether this is selling off the family silver again, or just another London Bridge - by which I mean relieving a gulllible Yank of loads of money for an "asset" we no longer need?

Neither really.
BT is a private company now so it’s not “we”. The hotel company aren’t gullible yanks. It’s a building no longer needed for its original purpose getting renovated into a hotel. Same as MCR did with the TWA building at JFK.

 

[Dai Corner]

I was taken there as a child when it was still open to the public. Sadly my Mum couldn't afford a meal in the revolving restaurant.

It was built to carry microwave dishes* in the days when that was a more economical way to carry TV and telephone traffic than digging up the streets to lay copper wires. Fibre optics have changed all that, of course.


* For younger readers, a microwave dish was used to send and receive high frequency radio signals, not a meal that can be cooked in a couple of minutes using high frequency radio signals.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

It may have opened in 1964,1 but as you note - wasn’t allowed to appear on any maps until the late 70’s!

Certainly appears on this 1971 OS map. About a kilometre (grid square) to the South of Euston station.

View map: Great Britain. Ordnance Survey, Greater London - Edition 4-GSGS - One-inch to the mile, Series M725 [compiled from Ordnance Survey S... - Ordnance Survey One-inch, Great Britain, Seventh Series, 1952-1961

Maybe the issue was that it was built just after the date of the previous map revision, and so didn't appear on it.

 

[voyagerdude220]

Apparently the Reception will be brilliant.
(gets coat..)

 

[dangie]

As an aside interest.
Apart from the top section, aerial’s, viewing gallery, restaurant etc etc… what was the rest of the tower used for?

 

[Buzby]

Maybe the issue was that it was built just after the date of the previous map revision, and so didn't appear on i

The Govt deemed many sites and areas to be ‘sensitive’ as a Govt agency, the OS complied and many sites did not appear - ICI Chemical Works, Porton Down Research Establishments, Army Camps there was a lot of them. A-Z Map of London didn’t show the ‘Post Office Tower’ until the late 60’s, their maps were usually bi-ennial so they missed a few Issues. Looking at my old maps, they started appearing in the late 60’s.

This is the 25“map series available until 1973 - the tower is in the section referred to as ‘Post Office Stores’!

Side by side georeferenced maps viewer - Map images - National Library of Scotland

 

[najaB]

Apart from the top section, aerial’s, viewing gallery, restaurant etc etc… what was the rest of the tower used for?

Up until the mid-2000s it was one of the three or four switching locations used for live TV across Western Europe.

If watched a live event from the 1970s onwards, there's a pretty good chance it passed through BT Tower.

They don’t use it, and looking at their share price, they’re still trying to make the money back that they lost with BT Sport

The problem wasn't just BT Sport, it was that plus EE in very short order. Not to ignore the fact that Gavin was a terrible CEO.

 

[lachlan]

As an aside interest.
Apart from the top section, aerial’s, viewing gallery, restaurant etc etc… what was the rest of the tower used for?

It is still in active use as an office for BT staff and as a bookable events space.

 

[dk1]

My parents went to the restaurant during their honeymoon in 1966 & thoroughly enjoyed it.

I always think of Noel Edmond’s as his Christmas Day morning programme reuniting families would be broadcast from the tower. Feargall Sharkey even doing a link from a plane singing “A good heart” springs to mind.

 

[Buzby]

It is still in active use as an office for BT staff

The question was ‘apart from’ - there is A YT video showing the remnants of occupation of the old technology of the 70s-80s. The most visible use was the tower itself as an advertising hoarding (the LED wrap), and the event space (the original resturant). The remaining tower floors where technical staff had offices were unused as they were originally equipment rooms, small and curved. The building at the bottom of the tower was more conventional and housed the switching centre and the admin areas associated with this until it closed. Use of this section continued as office space for BT staff, but it is this I believe will benefit from the conversion to hotel accommodation - there may be a few in the tower itself but they will be by necessity small - it’ll be interesting to see the plans.

This may help (slightly)

 

[dosxuk]

Most UK live television still passes through BT Tower today. It's more the move of broadcasting from baseband signals to IP that is allowing this sell off, as BT move their broadcast switching from physical kit connected to actual cables running to the various broadcasters and locations into "the cloud".

 

[najaB]

Most UK live television still passes through BT Tower today. It's more the move of broadcasting from baseband signals to IP that is allowing this sell off, as BT move their broadcast switching from physical kit connected to actual cables running to the various broadcasters and locations into "the cloud".

IIRC, a bunch of stuff was moved out of BT Tower in the run-up to London 2012 since they didn't have the capacity to handle the volume of content that was going to be generated. I worked for BT at the time and have recollections of it being said that they had to build new facilities on a different site.