London’s Canary Wharf area, a huge 1980s project in what had been the heart of London’s Dockland, is adjusting to life after the pandemic with a sharp turn from huge armies of office workers to, hopefully, hordes of visitors and locals looking for views and experiences.
To accommodate that, one of Canary Wharf’s skyline buildings, the HSBC headquarters at 8 Canada Square (left) will have several huge chunks taken out of it to create outdoor and semi-outdoor terraces and spaces. Former trading floors will become theatres, restaurants, hotels and shops. The building’s owner says it’s part of a plan to turn Canary Wharf into a “mixed use neighborhood.”
The shift comes as banks and financial institutions, which used to fill 70% of the space in the area, now have much lower headcounts, with more employees still working from home and some functions no longer requiring as much staff. HSBC is only one of numbers that have or are planning to retreat from high prices and large spaces, returning to smaller leases in the City of London nearby.
