This was a very popular event!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caf%C3%A9_Royal The Crown Estate had a vision in 2003 to refurbish their central London Estate which include the Café Royal. To achieve the vision a team was created from Mace http://www.macegroup.com/projects/caf%C3%A9-royal as Construction Manager (construction management contract); Buro4 (B4) as Project Manager; Chipperfield Architects ; URS Scot Wilson for Structural ; Aecom for M&E and the personal involvement of a client, Alrov, the hotelier – an Israeli company - http://thesethotels.com/ and http://www.tripadvisor.com.au/Hotel_Review-g293983-d1467206-Reviews-or110-Mamilla_Hotel-Jerusalem_Jerusalem_District.html .Manly was Mace’s client for this project http://www.manlygroup.com/Company%20Brochure%202012.pdf
Adjacent blocks owned by Crown Estate were also being redeveloped at the same time and became colloquially known as Quadrant 1,2,3 & 4. There is a 125 year Crown Lease. Café Royal (CR) is Quadrant 1 and has all its site access, due to planning and Regent Street is a Red Route so that means no stopping at all the kerb, in a side street called Air Street. Access to the site is from Quadrant 3 which is behind CR and separated by another street is 'interesting' in that materials go into Q3, down into its basemen then along a new tunnel into Q1 = CR and up again!
Planning Permission was granted April 2008, Ground break was January 2009 and final completion is slated for September 2013. A phased opening is happening right now. Apparently, the original CR was a gentleman’s club and was kept operational is some form or other during construction. The building is listed – English Heritage (EH) and so whilst a wall might be listed, a floor might not and vice versa so inserting new services was not always straightforward and varied room to room, floor to floor. There are 10 floors and 8 historic rooms. Now it is an hotel with 159 5* rooms http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g186338-d586582-Reviews-Cafe_Royal-London_England.html
Following on from an unexplained fire, the Grill Room was refurbed and had to fit back in all its respects due to EH listing status. So if walls had been finished with say green paint, then the insurers were happy to pay for new, green paint although there had been gold leaf under the green paint and so they wanted new gold leaf and then have it painted over with green. All very bizarre and fascinating!Altogether it is was one of the most interesting and informative site visits we have made. Enjoyed by all.
