U.S. Plans to Move Embassy in London to Enhance Security

LONDON, Oct. 2 -- The U.S. government plans to build a new embassy near the River Thames, moving from historic Grosvenor Square, which has been associated with the United States since shortly after the nation was born in 1776.

U.S. Ambassador Robert H. Tuttle on Thursday signed an agreement with Ballymore, a British real estate development firm, to acquire a five-acre development site just south of the Thames near Wandsworth.

The move, part of a years-long process that will require U.S. congressional approval and local planning permission, is part of a long-term U.S. strategy to improve security at U.S. embassies, a State Department official said.

More than 60 new embassies and other overseas facilities have been built since 2000 in a construction campaign spurred by the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, said Jonathan Blyth of the State Department's Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations.

Renovation of the existing London embassy building, which opened in 1960, would have cost up to $600 million, taken seven years and still not have resulted in state-of-the-art security, according to Blyth.

The government spent $15 million last year on security measures that had been mandated after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. Even after those upgrades, the embassy offices are still located close to busy streets from which potential bomb attacks could be launched.

The building, a massive concrete and stone structure, is the largest U.S. embassy in Western Europe, with more than 600 rooms on nine floors and more than 750 employees. It was designed by Finnish American architect Eero Saarinen, who also created the main terminal at Dulles International Airport in Northern Virginia.

While many people appreciate the historical significance of the embassy building, it has drawn wide criticism as ungainly 1950s architecture dropped into a neighborhood that otherwise largely retains the ambiance of the 18th and 19th centuries.

The proposed new site is in the Nine Elms Opportunity Area, a development zone where a new embassy would have plenty of room to incorporate the latest security measures, Blyth said.

Speaking to reporters at the embassy, Tuttle said an international design competition would be held to ensure that the new facility "reflects the best of modern design, incorporates the latest in energy-efficient building techniques, and celebrates the values of freedom and democracy."

The new site is slightly closer to the centers of British government than the current location. "We'll have views of Parliament and Big Ben," Blyth said. "We will be able to see the British government from our embassy."

Selling the Grosvenor Square site in the Mayfair neighborhood, which has some of the most expensive real estate in the world, is expected to cover the cost of purchasing and building a new embassy, Blyth said.

Peter Wetherell, a leading Mayfair real estate specialist, said the embassy complex could sell for 300 million to 500 million pounds, or as much as $883 million at current exchange rates. He said any new owner would most likely raze the building to make way for a hotel, offices or homes.

That sale price, combined with nearly $500 million in proceeds from last year's sale of another U.S. government building in Grosvenor Square, could give the government more than $1.3 billion for the project.

Grosvenor Square, sometimes called Little America, has been part of U.S. tradition in London since John Adams, the first envoy to Britain from the newly independent country and later its second president, lived there starting in 1785.

The square, not far from Hyde Park, is home to monuments to Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower, who as supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe during World War II had his headquarters on the square. There is also a memorial to those killed on Sept. 11.