Britain’s NHS plans to turn century-old hospital building in Hampstead, London, into luxury flats
Queen Mary’s House, which provides affordable housing for 52 nurses, is being marketed to developers as a ‘One Hyde Park-style’ project
Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) is privately marketing a 100-year-old hospital building that provides affordable housing for 52 nurses and other key workers to property developers to create a One Hyde Park-style complex of luxury flats overlooking Hampstead Heath in London.
The Royal Free hospital is promoting Queen Mary’s House – a gift from the Lever Brothers co-founder Lord Leverhulme 97 years ago – as “Hampstead Gardens … a rare opportunity to create one of the most desirable new-build schemes in London”.
A password-restricted website set up by the Royal Free London NHS foundation trust describes the 1.6 acre site as “the last major development site in Hampstead with an unrivalled position between the heath and Hampstead Village”.
The hospital’s Hampstead-Gardens.com website shows architects’ plans to convert the site into 162 luxury flats in four five-storey blocks with underground car parks. Local agents said the three-bedroom penthouse flats could sell for up to £10 million (US$13.4 million) each. They put the total sale value of the scheme at about £280m.
It’s a wonderful location and undoubtedly supports luxury apartments. It really is as extraordinary as it appears and it is very rare to find a piece of land in that location
The website, created with the high-end property consultancy Knight Frank and the architects Ryder Architecture, tells potential builders they do not need to worry about affordable housing lowering the tone of the development as the legally required affordable units can be housed in a separate development on the main hospital site.