Contract award

Kier appointed to deliver Holden House scheme on Oxford Street

By Staff Writer  |  17 August 2026

Derwent London has appointed Kier to deliver Holden House, a 98.95 million pound office led redevelopment on the corner of Oxford Street and Rathbone Place in the West End.

The appointment was announced on 11 August 2026. The scheme will transform the existing building through a behind the facade redevelopment, creating around 135,000 sq ft of commercial space directly opposite the Dean Street entrance to Tottenham Court Road Elizabeth line station.

The property will be extended to eight storeys, providing 115,000 sq ft of Grade A office accommodation alongside 20,000 sq ft of retail space fronting Oxford Street. The design includes a new central glazed atrium, large floorplates with high levels of natural daylight, natural ventilation through operable windows, multiple occupier terraces and a shared landscaped roof terrace, together with cycle storage, showers and changing facilities.

Kier will use a precast facade as a key part of the project's modern methods of construction strategy, with early design coordination and logistics planning intended to improve quality and programme certainty on a constrained inner city site. The scheme targets BREEAM Outstanding, LEED Gold, NABERS UK 4.5 star, EPC A, SmartScore Platinum and WiredScore Platinum certifications.

This is Kier's second scheme with Derwent London. The first, the all electric Network W1 office and retail development completed earlier this year, delivered 136,300 sq ft of Category A office space across eight floors and 4,900 sq ft of retail at ground level.

Richard Baldwin, Development Director at Derwent London, said: "Holden House will deliver prime commercial space behind the Grade II listed façade fronting Oxford Street. Bringing together heritage, sustainability and exceptional design, Holden House will create a distinctive new workplace in one of London's most well-connected locations."

David Rowsell, Managing Director for Kier Construction London and Thames Valley, said: "We are delighted to continue our successful relationship with Derwent London on Holden House."

What the practitioner should take from this

A behind the facade redevelopment concentrates risk in the one element that cannot be replaced. Retaining a Grade II listed frontage while rebuilding everything behind it means temporary works, monitoring regimes and movement tolerances all written around a structure whose actual condition is only fully known once opened up. The practitioner should ask how the contract treats a facade condition worse than the surveys assumed: whether it is a relevant event, a relevant matter, or silently the contractor's risk. On listed fabric, the answer usually decides the job's commercial outcome.

The precast facade strategy on the new elements pulls in the opposite direction: factory tolerances meeting a retained historic structure that was never built to them. The interface drawings, and the party that owns the survey data feeding the precast moulds, deserve attention before manufacture starts, because a mould cut to a wrong dimension is a cost that cannot be mitigated afterwards.

Working directly opposite a live Elizabeth line entrance, on Oxford Street, also makes third party constraints part of the critical path. Crane oversailing, hoarding licences, noise conditions and any asset protection requirements attached to the railway are consents the contractor does not fully control. Where the contract fixes the completion date but a consent authority controls the pace, the extension of time machinery needs to name that risk expressly.

None of that reflects on this project, where no dispute has been reported. It is the standard risk anatomy of heritage retention in the West End, and the sensible moment to test the drafting is now, while the facade is still closed up.