Overgrown garden at the futuristic Regents House – the long-abandoned building could now become a 640-bed hotel with a rooftop bar and gym

AN enormous futuristic structure in Angel, which has sat near-empty for almost a decade, has been earmarked for a £100million hotel redevelopment.

The corridors of Regents House, right next to the tube station, are quiet, desks have been abandoned, and an overgrown garden sits at its centre.

Some 3,000 workers could have at one point worked here, but the buildings’s 40-year history tells a rather different story. It has been left empty for large swathes of that time, with more recent attempts at re-invention falling flat.

The 30,000-square-metre building was first constructed in the mid-1980s as an in-case-of-emergency base for RBS. If the main centre in the City was bombed, the thinking was, bankers would be able to relocate to Angel and continue with their work.

Meanwhile, huge concrete walls and a metres-thick safe door remain in the basement as reminders of its history as a cash and gold holding centre.

The vault door in the building by Angel tube

Air-locked transfer pods would have allowed for hundreds of thousands of pounds in notes to be transported from trucks which would have unloaded the piles of cash into them before they were then picked up inside.

Decades later, an estimated £23million was spent by Rocket, a co-working space company, to transform several of the floors into shared office space in 2017.

But the vastness of the building, along with its unconventional layout, meant it struggled to attract start-ups and businesses, who would have preferred to situate themselves in King’s Cross or Farringdon.

Now, property developers SENG have their eyes set on transforming the long-abandoned structure into an 640-bed hotel with a rooftop bar and gym. On the ground level, they plan to restore the courtyard to its former glory and allow the public to come in and out.

“My nan used to pick me up and take me here to the courtyard after school,” said John Greenshields, who works at Kanda, a consultancy firm helping SENG on the project.

Will Kumar, left, and John Greenshields

“There was a big water feature, and we used to come here and run amok. There would maybe be one office worker having their lunch outside. It was amazing, and it was so quiet, we want to get it back to a place where it can be open for the community”.

The developers hope that small pop-up restaurants will move into the units along the perimeter of the courtyard, and these can be places where new chefs can cut their teeth and try out new things.

“We want to keep it vibrant, rather than having it be the world’s largest Pizza Express.” added Mr Greenshields.

The developers have yet to secure planning permission for the change of use, but hope that if everything goes to plan the new hotel will open its doors in the middle of 2029.

Will Kumar, planning and development chief at SENG, told the Tribune: “It will be a £100million investment in Angel town centre, and there’s a lot of benefit that comes with that.

“We hope it will provide jobs and training for local people, opportunities to work in the hotel, and work in hospitality”.

The Tribune understands that the developers are lining up a contract with a European hotel chain which would attract business people and tourists.