U.S. Embassy Moves to the Other Side of the Tracks
Grosvenor Square, Matthew Armstrong via flickr /Artwork: designslinger]
Location, location, location, the real estate mantra. The U.S. State Department has
announced that they intend to relocate the Embassy from London's Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, across the Thames to a former industrial site in the Battersea/Vauxhall area. Apparently, the primary reason for the move has to do with security issues.
architecture in Mayfair, Kate Pugh via flickr /Artwork: designslinger]
The United States has maintained a presence in the Square since the days of John Adams,
who served as our first Ambassador to Great Britain. That's a 200-year legacy. The current Embassy building, opened in 1960, was designed by architect Eero Saarinen in a community with some of the best examples Georgian-style architecture anywhere in the world. In one of those wacky London real estate deals, the building sits on land owned by the Duke of Westminster, which has been under the Grosvenor family's control since 1677. There are more than 930 years left on the Embassy's original 999 year lease agreement, so apparently the Westminster family plans on holding on to the property for a while. Even though the area isn't a good fit for the State Department any longer, time hasn't diminished the social cache of Mayfair which is still considered one of London's poshest neighborhoods. Developed in the 17th and 18th centuries, as an upscale, aristocratic residential community, the area is also home to an exclusive shopping and luxury hotel district, and has the highest residential and commercial rental rates in the city.
Battersea Power Station, Gaetan Lee via flickr /Artwork: designslinger]
When the folks in the State Department decided that Mayfair wasn't their cup of tea any
longer, the site they chose for the new Embassy came as quite a surprise. Not only were they leaving Grosvenor Square, but they were leaving the upscale north London area altogether and jumping to the south bank of the Thames. It would be like moving from New York's Upper East Side to the Lower East Side, kind of trendy but still rough around the edges. The intended site is located in the New Elms neighborhood, between the headquarters of the British Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as "MI6", and the abandoned Battersea Power Station. The 1939 Station is an iconic Art Deco landmark and the MI6 building was built in the late 1980s in some sort of Deco-inspired design. The location is all the more surprising because it has been home to a host of gay clubs for at least a decade. And, as central London has become astronomically expensive, upwardly mobile straight couples have been moving into the area.
So, in the grand old tradition of urban pioneering that has been going on in cities for
generations: first the gays, then the yuppies, and in a new twist, the U.S. State Department.
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