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Quite a few of the core team here, including me, built these buildings first time round; Canary Wharf is where I started my career 33 years ago,” opens Alec Vallintine, Managing Director, Construction at Canary Wharf Group( CWG).“ I handed over 8 Canada Square, colloquially known as the HSBC building, myself 25 years ago, and now we’ re going back in, revisiting, refitting, and reworking the building for today’ s needs. We’ ve evolved from large commercial builders into residential, as we’ re coming to the end of a scheme to deliver over 4600 apartments across the district. Now, we’ re moving into heavy refurb work, which requires a whole new mindset.”

A quarter of a century after the first buildings were constructed, the group that built Canary Wharf out of the London Docklands is turning its attention inwards. With some of the original Canary Wharf buildings, CWG is taking on the challenging yet exciting opportunity to reconsider how those buildings serve the millions of people visiting the district in 2026 and beyond.

One Eden, otherwise known as 33 Canada Square, is CWG’ s current retrofit focus. Originally occupied by Citigroup from the late 1990s, it was one of the first buildings the company completed after coming out of the administration of Olympia and York, which makes reworking it even more monumental.“ It’ s one of our babies, so it feels strange to be returning and repurposing it,” Alec says.“ It’ s interesting to see how much has changed over the last 25 years, particularly in terms of technology and environmental regulations. We’ ve already seen interest, with PwC signing heads of terms for 350,000 square feet of the space.”

This project is the first of many buildings, as 8 Canada Square, colloquially known as HSBC tower, is back in planning. As one of the district’ s most closely watched buildings,

▼ Alec Vallintine

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