Two more of Croydon’s 1960s brutalist landmark buildings are set to be converted into flats, in further residential intensification of the town centre.
Lunar House: Home Office staff are still be moved across Croydon to Ruskin Square
Singaporean investor Ho Bee Land bought government office blocks Apollo House and Lunar House for £99million in 2015. And now that Home Office staff are moving into 21st Century offices in Ruskin Square, Ho Bee Land has come forward with its conversion plans.
Ho Bee Land has submitted initial plans to the council’s planning department to refurbish and convert the office blocks into flats – 420 at Lunar House and 208 at Apollo House, both on Wellesley Road.
Apollo House: opened as offices in 1970, it will soon be converted into 208 flats
That’s all in addition to whatever other developers are coming up with along that stretch of six-lane urban motorway, or whatever number of flats Westfield eventually decide upon as part of their latest version of plans for the Whitgift Centre, on the other side of Wellesley Road.
Ho Bee Land are expected to put forward a full planning application next year.
This latest office-to-residential conversion comes just a few weeks after Inside Croydon broke the news that the owners of No1 Croydon, by East Croydon Station, was also to be coverted office-to-resi, cramming 250 microflats into that building’s 24 floors.
Lunar House (20 storeys tall) and Apollo House (22 storeys) were developed by property speculator Harry Hyams and opened in 1970, their names inspired by the 1969 NASA moon landings. They comprise a total of 441,797 sq ft of office space.
Luxury flats: the Singaporean developers have already converted this landmark building on Albert Embankment
“This acquisition is unique as it offers us recurrent income till 2023,” Chua Thian Poh, the chairman of Ho Bee Land, said on buying the properties nine years ago. “In the interim, it allows us ample time to plan and maximise the development potential of the site.”
Ho Bee Land bought about £600million-worth of property in Britain in a purchasing spree a decade ago.
That included offices at No1 Albert Embankment, on the south side of Lambeth Bridge, which they have already converted to 183 apartments and seven penthouses, called (inevitably) Parliament View, “the perfect place to enjoy the culture and style that is emblematic of London city living”, apparently.
They may struggle to get the same kind of high-end returns on their Croydon properties.
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
Anywhere within a few hundred metres of East Croydon station will become an extension of London Bridge / Victoria without the amenities.
Totally dead in the daytime and just somewhere to sleep at night.
Fast food will abound, the sex centre of South Croydon will prosper.
A dump in the making.
The three penny building has just got permission to turn it into flats too
Have you bothered to read the article?
i understand that they want to convert lunar house and apollo house into flats while we need more homes in croydon it is no good building homes if their is no work in the borough of croydon to go to i am sure residents of croydon would agree thqat we have lost nearly all of our local companies and manufactoring base in croydon so with the loss of all these companies then having more office based work would be an option in croydon as well as trying to attract companies to the town in milton keynes buckinghamshire they have a 180 thousand jobs and over 12 thousand 300 businesses yes they have got homes built in milton keynes but at least they have the jobs for its local residents to go to not croydon attracting companies and office based work should be the number one priority from croydon council before building homes its no good having homes without jobs in the borough
It feels like Croydon is being used as a dumping ground for flats and I don’t trust this Council not to approve it all, given their track record. They are trying to force skyscrapers through next to Fairfield Halls again. The GLA could once again be our saving grace and veto them if they aren’t up to scratch. What planners do is make provisions for increases in population, what they seem to do here is improve nothing and hope for the best and put fake notions of economic growth and arbitrary housing targets above living standards and quality of living. They’ve all got it backwards.
I love skyscrapers (it’s one of the reasons I moved to Croydon) but they need to be of good quality. I suspect that the Apollo & Lunar House conversions will become modern day slums very quickly. Those buildings are already an eyesore.
The Croydon economy will not improve until there is a decent shopping centre to attract outsiders for shopping and entertainment. While other towns are getting on with redevelopment and renewal, it seems Croydon must still wait another 10 years. It seems that the council has no clue about what they should be doing.
The age of large shopping malls is over, Adrian. Even Westfield admits that.
It is a good job this latest batch of conversions from offices to flats are near East Croydon station because there will be no point in their future residents having a fume-belcher, because the nearest parking for it will be a couple of miles away, outside the Central Croydon CPZ.
Hopefully, these new conversions will be the (well-received) Leon House end of the scale and not at the Delta Point end, which hasn’t even waited to become a “slum of tomorrow”?
no more conversions.. no more 1 bedroom flats . The borough needs family homes of 2/3 /4 bedrooms or better still.. LESS PEOPLE .. time to spread this housing craze across the country .
This sounds very much like Philponomics, Hazel. But, I think you mean ‘fewer’ people. Where do you think the ‘housing craze’ should be? I’m guessing a long way away?
Why you moan when you have housing crises and overseas investors come in?
Its ugly buildings – the Singaporean touch and standards will lift Croydon.
Ho Bee Land transformed Vauxhall area and made 3x on their investment since buying the ugly sisters in Croydon already. Compare this to your bankrupt Croydon crook councillors who lost money on every investment they made. Why don’t you hold your foolish councillors to account that bought high and sold low lah? who the hell lost money in UK property in the last 10 years? only your dumb councillors so stop blaming Singaporeans.
A tad touchy, much?
The wealthy island nation of Singapore’s urban planning is green, clean, diverse – and safe.
Bringing the same values and vision to a place like Croydon will arguably be a challenge that may not (in the end) be met.
But we can dream!
Singapore may be clean and safe, but culturally it’s a million, million miles away from Croydon. The only similarity is that it’s concreted over … And you can be executed for spitting chewing gum on the pavement, so they say.
https://studioegretwest.com/news/space-croydon
Looks horrendous but at least the building shaped like a rocket booster is interesting and different!
You mean the building that has been on that site for 60 years? This is an office to resi scheme.
You are correct. You can’t polish a turd