John F Hunt starts 45 Moorfields piling

John F Hunt has started piling and basement construction at 45 Moorfields in the City of London, moving the redevelopment of the former Tenter House site from demolition and enabling works into its first substantial structural phase.

The contractor is working for developer Freshwater alongside project manager Buro Four and cost consultant Exigere. The current package includes foundations, a single basement, and associated public-realm works, with the phase scheduled to continue until January 2027.

The site sits immediately beside Moorgate station and the Elizabeth line, placing the project within one of the City’s busiest transport and pedestrian environments. Construction traffic, deliveries, lifting, spoil removal, temporary routes, and public access all have to be managed around a location used daily by tens of thousands of passengers and office workers.

The approved redevelopment replaces the former 11-storey Tenter House with a part 14-storey and part 21-storey office building. The wider scheme includes new commercial floorspace, retail accommodation, community space, cycle parking, servicing, landscaping, and reconstructed public realm around New Union Street and Citypoint Plaza.

That gives the below-ground package a broader role than simply providing foundations for the future frame. Basement geometry, structural loads, drainage, utility routes, servicing requirements, and permanent external levels all have to be fixed sufficiently early to avoid creating conflicts for later superstructure and public-realm packages.

John F Hunt completed demolition and enabling works before moving into piling. On a constrained central London site, that transition is significant because the project has now moved beyond clearance and temporary arrangements into construction that directly defines the position and geometry of the completed development.

Piling also reduces the freedom available for later design change. Adjustments to columns, cores, transfer structures, or basement layouts become progressively more difficult once foundations are installed, making coordination between structural design, building services, façade loads, and the architectural layout critical during the current phase.

Detailed design work has continued alongside construction preparation. Amendments submitted during 2026 have covered the structural frame, cores, façade details, roof arrangements, electrical infrastructure, and elements of the public realm, reflecting the amount of technical coordination still required after the principal planning consent was secured.

The surrounding transport infrastructure adds another level of control. Excavation, piling, crane operations, and heavy vehicle movements close to railway assets and station entrances require tighter management of vibration, access, exclusion zones, and temporary works than would apply on a more isolated commercial development.

Space is equally restrictive. Reinforcement, concrete deliveries, piling equipment, spoil, temporary works materials, and welfare requirements all have to fit within or move through a compact site without allowing construction activity to overwhelm neighbouring streets.

That makes logistics planning a production issue rather than an administrative exercise. A delayed concrete delivery, unavailable lifting zone, or blocked spoil route can interrupt work at the point where several trades are dependent on the same limited access.

The public-realm element increases that coordination burden. New landscaping and hard surfaces around the development will be formed progressively, requiring temporary routes and construction boundaries to work alongside areas that will eventually become part of the permanent urban layout.

Interfaces with adjoining owners Citypoint and Brookfield also have to be managed through phased handovers. Levels, drainage, access, finishes, and boundary conditions need to align across ownership lines before completed areas can be released without later reopening them for adjacent work.

The redevelopment has spent years progressing through design and planning changes, but the start of piling provides a clearer construction milestone. Progress can now be measured through installed foundations and basement work rather than successive revisions to the proposed building.

McLaren has previously been identified for the main construction phase under a pre-construction services agreement, making the eventual transition from John F Hunt’s package an important delivery interface. Surveys, as-built information, temporary conditions, access arrangements, and design responsibilities will have to pass cleanly between the two stages.

Any delay in the current package would feed directly into that sequence. Foundations and basement construction sit beneath every principal package that follows, leaving less opportunity to recover lost time once the structural frame, façade, services, and fit-out begin competing for the same programme.

The project also demonstrates how much of a City office development is determined before its superstructure becomes visible. Temporary works, logistics routes, utility diversions, foundation tolerances, waterproofing, basement drainage, and third-party interfaces can shape the eventual programme long before the upper floors emerge above street level.

For Freshwater, the immediate objective is therefore to complete the constrained below-ground phase without carrying unresolved interfaces into the main build. The January 2027 target provides the next practical test: whether a site that spent years in planning can now maintain momentum once the engineering work becomes considerably harder to revise.