MCR becomes BT Tower custodian in £275m hotel handover

BT is to monetise and vacate the iconic and near-60-year-old BT Tower in a move that is said to preserve the London skyline and represent progress towards the cloudification and digital transformation goals of the Group.

The Group has agreed to the sale of the Fitzrovia site to MCR Hotels for £275m. MCR, which operates more than 150 hotels including the also-repurposed TWA Hotel at JFK Airport in New York, will eventually add the Grade II-listedtower to the portfolio, opening it to guests and “securing its place as a London landmark for the future”.

Payments for the sale will be spread over “multiple years”, with BT kit removed “progressively” ahead of completion. No firmer time frame has been given, but it appears the handover will take at least a few years.

Cloudify, simplify, rationalise

BT Tower once provided microwave-based connectivity, but dishes were removed “more than a decade ago” as part of a wider digital transition.

“ The BT Tower sits at the heart of London and we’ve been immensely proud to be the owners of this important landmark since 1984. It’s played a vital role in carrying the nation’s calls, messages and TV signals, but increasingly we’re delivering content and communication via other means. ”

Brent Mathews, Property Director, BT Group.

These other means include BT’s fixed and mobile networks, recipient of billions of pounds of investment.

BT Tower had also been a key site in BT’s early foray into low-power wide area (LPWA) network technology (BTwatch, #283), and flagged as the highest building in the world to have an IoT base station. However, after plans emerged in 2023 for a nationwide LPWA network rollout led by the Group’s erstwhile Division X, BT has gone quiet on the technology since the commercial innovation unit was folded into the restructured BT Business.

The tower continues to play a role in the Group’s content and distribution business BT Media & Broadcast as a key interchange point for live television. However, the division is transitioning to cloud-based services via its Venaplatform — a migration that is well underway and will “allow for a more straightforward move to more modern and efficient premises”, BT said.

A similar rationale was given when the Group sold its former headquarters, BT Centre at 81 Newgate Street, in 2019. That move was said to enable a shift to more ‘efficient’ offices at One Braham, Aldgate, better suited to collaboration and modern ways of working.

Another example of BT selling off its under-utilised assets in the capital is 2023’s sale of a network of underground tunnels which formed part of the Kingsway Telephone Exchange. Bloomberg reported that the network of underground tunnels were sold to former Macquarie Group executive Angus Murray, who has plans to turn them into a tourist attraction.

The BT Tower sale, like that of BT Centre, is part of BT’s work to simplify operations and lower costs, a programme that has included rationalisation of a sizable real estate portfolio. Announced in 2018 and initiated in 2019 as a five-year programme, 300 offices are to become around 30 regional ‘hubs’, dubbed the Better Workplace scheme.

BT Tower has also been a regular for events, with the rotating space at the top ever-popular and extending a fine view of the City.