As the regeneration of Sicilian Avenue and 31 Southampton Row nears completion after almost five years in the making, Wesley Sawyer, Associate at Workman, explains what makes the project worth paying attention to.

London has been debating the merits of pedestrianisation for decades. Oxford Street’s long-awaited transformation is finally going ahead this summer. Carnaby Street saw a 30% uplift in footfall when it went car-free back in 1973. And yet, tucked quietly between Holborn and Bloomsbury, Sicilian Avenue has been pedestrianised since 1910 and a hidden gem ever since.

That is about to change, as the destination prepares to fully reopen, having secured its first three occupiers: Flying Horse Coffee, Backworks modern seated massage, and Matchado, a Japanese tea shop. Workman was appointed by Tristan Capital Partners as the Project Manager and Employer’s Agent on Project 7: the circa £20m restoration and regeneration of 31 Southampton Row, in Sicilian Avenue. The wider team consists of Alchemy Asset Management as the Development Manager, Gleeds as the Quantity Surveyor, Waterman as the Mechanical & Electrical Consultant and Knight Frank is the estate’s Asset Manager. The project, spanning 47,500sq. ft of Sicilian Avenue’s 90,000sq. ft of mixed-use space, combines historic sensitivity with today’s traffic-free placemaking goals.

Sicilian Avenue, a baroque-themed arcade built in Edwardian times with Italian marble, colonnades, and turrets, is one of London’s earliest pedestrianised streets. Completed in 1910, it runs between Southampton Row and Vernon Place in the heart of Bloomsbury, flanked by Grade II listed Edwardian architecture and framed at either end by grand listed porticos. For much of its recent history it has been a quiet backstreet of bookshops and boutiques: pleasant but underutilised and low-profile, given its setting and location, moments from Holborn Station and the British Museum, and only seven minutes’ walk from Tottenham Court Road.

Research commissioned by Tristan Capital Partners underlines the opportunity: 63% of UK residents say they are more likely to visit food and beverage venues on pedestrianised streets when in London. Meanwhile, 95% of the city’s business community say they would visit Sicilian Avenue specifically for high-quality dining and socialising. With 70,000 daily visitors to the area – made up of tourists, university students, office workers and residents – the audience is already there, but they need a reason to stop and spend time.

Workman’s role as Project Manager and Employer’s Agent means we are the client’s primary point of contact with main contractor Structure Tone International throughout delivery: coordinating design, managing the programme, administering the building contract, and driving the project from briefing stage through to completion.

The restoration of Sicilian Avenue itself is central to the scheme. The listed porticos at either end of the avenue are being carefully restored, and the building façades on both sides – masonry, stonework, shopfronts – are being brought back to their original character.

New public realm LED lighting is being installed along the avenue to create an inviting atmosphere that works as well in the evening as it does during the day, supporting the al fresco dining and socialising offer that will define the space. Provision is also being made for open café seating areas, completing the conditions for a destination that people will want to spend time in.

As part of Project 7, six commercial units (a total of 13,500 sq. ft), within 31 Southampton Row re being delivered in shell condition with capped services, ready for tenants to fit out: a blank canvas sized for the restaurants, cafes and bars that will populate the avenue.

On the floors above, 25,000sq. ft of contemporary office space across four floors is being reconfigured through significant structural alterations. Much of the original load-bearing masonry has been removed, and new structural steelwork installed to create the open-plan, flexible workspace that today’s occupiers expect. A new end-of-trip facility in the basement, with cycle storage and showers, supports active and sustainable commuting.

At the top of the building, the fifth floor’s existing apartments (covering 3,500 sq. ft) are being refreshed, with a new protected stair core extending to roof level for plant maintenance purposes

The project is targeting BREEAM Excellent accreditation — a meaningful ambition for a building of its heritage and Grade II Listed status. With the building extensively refurbished throughout, all building services are entirely new: energy-efficient heating and cooling, LED lighting throughout, secondary glazing to the historic façades, and a cycle infrastructure that actively encourages sustainable travel. The scheme also forms part of an estate-wide greening and biodiversity strategy, developed in collaboration with the Central District Alliance.

Breathing new life into an existing historic building rather than demolishing and rebuilding is, of course, one of the most sustainable choices a developer can make. The embodied carbon already in this structure has value, and this project preserves it.

The restoration of this calm, car-free, human-scaled space for people to gather, work, and live, is due for practical completion in summer 2026, with the Cat A+ office fit-out completing later in the year.