Balfour Beatty wins £200m London student/office scheme

Balfour Beatty has scooped the pre-construction service contract to build a £200m mixed-used development in the heart of the City of London for student accommodation specialist Urbanest.The 35 Vine Street scheme in EC3 will create 643 student homes within the landmark 14-floor building alongside affordable offices and innovation space for King’s College London.A new exhibition space, offering public access to a preserved section of London’s original Roman wall, has also been created in partnership with the Museum of London, alongside 75,000 sq ft of commercial offices and 10,000 sq ft of incubator space for start-ups.As part of the redevelopment, significant new public space will be created on Jewry Street with a new east-west pedestrian route, enabling pedestrians to cut through the site whilst having a view into the exhibition space.Paul Tumelty is Balfour Beatty project director on the job, which was designed by architect Hopkins alongside engineers Robert Bird Group and M&E specialist MTT.It will be Urbanest’s seventh student accommodation block in central London since it was founded in 2008.Balfour is also delivering a 32-storey tower in Vauxhall for Urbanest.