DOMINIONS HOUSE

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 55, 6 March 1914, Page 11

DOMINIONS HOUSE

"-——»»» *>- TWO AND A-HALP MILLIONS STERLING PROGRESS OF TIIE SCHEME (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, 21st January. The friends of Earl Grey's scheme to erect a Dominion House on the Aldwych site are now confident of success. That it is a stupendous undertaking will be gathered from the financial standpoint. The land will cost £1,300,000 freehold, and the block of buildings as much as the land itself, altogether some two and a-haJf million pounds. The Board of Directors of Dominion Sites (Ltd.), which heretofore consisted of Earl Grey (chairman), Mr. George Beebham (New Zaland), Mr, H. E. B*ittain, Mr. G. M'Laren Brown (Canada], Sir J. Henniker Heaton (Australia), Sir L. Starr Jameson (South Africa), and the Earl of Plymouth, has been strengthened recently by the addition of the Duke of Norfolk, who will take the post of acting-chairman of the company during Lord Grey's absence in Australia, and New Zealand; Lord Chelmsford, who has lately returned to England, after several years' service as Governor of Queensland and of New South Wales; and Colonel Sir Edward Ward, who recently retired from the Secretaryship of th» War Office. 4 The area of the land is nearly four times greater than the Australian site, the proposed "Dominions House" will be i four times the size of the Australian_ offices now in course of erection. Provisional plans have been prepared already by Mr. Marshall Mackenzie, the architect of the Commonwealth building, on a scale equal to housing, not only the Canadian Dominion and the Canadian provinces, ( but also the Dominions of South Africa and New Zealand and the South African Provinces. The building is designed to occupy an area of 124,000 square feet (fifty feet greater than the floor space of St. Paul's Cathedral) with four frontages, viz., to the Strand, 413 f t; to Aldwych and Kingsway, §37ft ; to Melbourne Place, on the east (the thoroughfare at the side of the Victorian Government Offices), 231 ft; and on the western side to the thoroughfare behind Marconi House, 236 ft, making a total frontage of 1517 ft, or nearly three acres. A striking feature of the elevation shown on these plans is a tower to be 366 ft in 'height, or two feet higher tfhan the top of St. Paul's. The internal design provides for a great Exhibition Hall on the ground floor, 460 ft long by 112 ft wide, or nearly double the dimensions of Westminster Hall. Estimates of probable income from the whole building, if fully occupied, show an annual return, after proper deductions for outgoings and management, of' £124,000, being sufficient to pay 4 per cent, interest on the purchase price of the land, and 5 per cent, on thp cost of construction. ■OFFER TO THE DOMINIONS. The Directors of Dominion Sites (Ltd.) recently communicated with the representatives of the Governments of Canada, South Africa, and New Zealand, sotting out the facts of the position, and offering three alternatives un der which each or all of those Dominions might come into this scheme. Under the first, the Dominions named might jointly agree to take over the right to acquire the freehold, in which case the company would transfer its rights without profit. In the second alternative the same ' method might be pursued in regard to the leasehold, which the company is also 'willing to transfer without advantage to itself. The third alternative is for each or all of the Do--minions named. t6,. deal direct with the County Council for so much of the land as each or all of them might' require. Should the dominions prefer not to under-, take a sub-lease of .the land and buildings when ready for occupation, it is suggested that a separate company might be formed to acquire the present company's option, and to erect the required buildings. In such an event it is thought that the Dominions concerned might assist in raising the necessary capital. It is stated that Canada has now withdrawn from the .negotiations for the purchase of the Westminster Hospital site, and is free to entertain the Aldwych project.