McGee

A Load of Old Bullion

McGee is close to completing a design and build contract for London developer Thornsett Estates.

The project comprised the total redevelopment of the Hackney Empire’s Bullion Room Theatre and office building, to provide a 7-storey complex of 25 flats and houses, called “Chaplin Apartments.”

The development also incorporates a community space and café for the theatre plus a new rehearsal space which will be called the “New Bullion Room”.

McGee’s contract included the demolition of the existing 1960s office and theatre block on Wilton Way, to make way for the new £4.5 million redevelopment. The old building owed its name to rumours which circulated in the wake of the 1983 Brinks-MAT Robbery at Heathrow Airport. Thieves, breaking into a strong-room hoping to steal £3 million of cash, instead found three tonnes of gold bullion, worth £26 million. It was widely believed that, following the robbery, the gang stashed the stolen gold in the Wilton Way building.

Disappointingly for the on-site team, no gold was found during the demolition! However it is widely believed that anybody wearing gold jewellery made in the UK after 1983, is probably wearing Brinks-MAT.

The new development will be handed over to the client at the end of Summer 2011.