Menta Tries Again With Croydon Skys

by Mr007 December 22nd 2010, 8:37 pm

Menta Tries Again With Croydon Skyscraper

Menta has unveiled their latest attempts to get a series of buildings underway in the London borough of Croydon that includes a landmark 171-metre tall tower.

The 53-storey skyscraper starts with five levels of basement parking and then ground and first floor retail followed by a single floor offering amenities for residents such as a business centre, a games room, and a craft room plus a meeting room for a residents committee. The rest of the tower is one and two bedroom flats, some 390 or so in total.

There is also the inclusion of sky-gardens, the tallest of which will run six storeys high and be tall enough to accommodate mature trees. On level 43 will be another amenity floor with the upper levels of the building including a double height penthouse terrace.

Over to the south of a new public space will be a new 18-storey hotel building, although the developer has yet to confirm an operator, but it will have 180 rooms and 25 serviced apartments. On the southern extreme of the site will be Billinton Hill, with offices and 1,000 square metres of ground floor retail and restaurant space.

Meanwhile, at Cherry Orchard Gardens, a separate site on the other side of Cherry Orchard Road will be 72 apartments from one to three bedrooms for affordable housing, plus a new community centre and town houses along Oval Road.

The Cherry Orchard Road project has been designed by architecture firm, Make as a central part of the East Croydon Masterplan. Overlooking the East Croydon train station, the scheme is only a railway bridge away from the Croydon Gateway scheme 60 metres to its west.

One catch is that the developer promises to completely regenerate the Addiscombe Road area offering the sort of amenities one finds in a city centre. Although a sound idea in theory, in practise only a block away is street after street of suburban housing. To the immediate south of the site however is Croydon's former tallest building, the NLA Tower, showing that the area is clearly split between two worlds.

The scheme had previously featured a cluster of four similarly designed "pointy" buildings by the same architect but this failed to win planning permission.

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