Plans have been unveiled for the renovation of 1 Embankment Place — the building which sits above Charing Cross station — with improvements in the works for nearby side streets.
Particularly of note for Londoners will be Hopkins Architects' plans for Villiers Street, the road which runs alongside the western side of Charing Cross station from Strand to Embankment station (by way of London's most famous wine bar), and which is apparently used by 3,000 people per hour (the station, not the wine bar).
The promise is to make Villiers Street "a brighter, more welcoming gateway" connecting the West End with the South Bank, as shown in the top image, with improved frontages to businesses on Villiers Street, as well as The Arches and Embankment Place, which run underneath the Charing Cross station building, and space for new shops, restaurants and cafes.
The plans reference a "new high level walkway to Hungerford Bridge", the footbridge running across the Thames from Charing Cross. However, such a walkway already exists, heavily used by pedestrians as a route between Charing Cross station and the South Bank. The renderings accompanying the plans (see top image) suggest it'll be smartened up a bit, with the existing escalators opened to the elements (they're currently indoors and undercover).
Victoria Embankment Gardens, the public park next to Embankment station, will see "better pedestrian connectivity" to help people move through the area, presumably in the form of new paths and access gates. Full details should be available here on 25 March.
As for the 1 Embankment Place building itself, the plans include 35,000 sqm of sustainable office space alongside amenities such as new outdoor terraces; probably not of interest to the average Londoner who's unlikely ever to set foot inside the building. 90% of the existing structure and the majority of the façade will be kept, and — as is now uniformly the case with such projects — there's a 'focus on sustainability'.
A public consultation on the plans runs online 25 March-19 April 2026, with in-person public exhibitions at the Clermont Hotel at Charing Cross on Wednesday 25 March (4pm-7.30pm) and Thursday 26 March (4pm-7.30pm), when there's a chance to meet the team involved in the plans.
