Rebuilding Piccadilly Circus

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31339, 8 April 1967, Page 13

Rebuilding Piccadilly Circus

' (N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) LONDON, April 7. Designs for a vast entertainment centre to be built on Piccadilly Circus, the heart of West End London night life, will be submitted to international competition, it was announced in London. The whole scheme is estimated to cost about £lO mil-

lion and should become one of London’s biggest tourist landmarks.

It was outlined by Mr Joe Levy, director of Stock Conversion and Investment Trust The company plans to develop a four-acre site bordering Soho, the capital’s seedy but teeming “pleasure district.”

It started buying plots in this area as long as 16 years ago and this week achieved its goal of gaining control of the remaining part with

a £7,400,000 deal with Lyons, the catering firm which own a chain of restaurants all over the country. Levy, already dubbed “Mr Piccadilly Circus,” spoke enthusiastically of rebuilding the whole site on an imaginative basis.

“This could be the greatest landmark in the world,” he said.

Levy has not yet worked out details of the international architectural competition.

He plans to build a multideck development with motor traffic and a shopping centre on ground level. It would incorporate a large area which could be used for exhibitions, meetings, or even boxing matches. There would also be a dance hall, a banqueting hall, a night club, a big hotel, and possibly a theatre. Some blocks would be linked above the street by pedestrian bridges.