John Street - Callaghan Square

You dont set the ground level at 0.00 as you dont want to use negative numbers for say basement level to avoid error. So you select a local datum to represent 'ground level' in this case 7.500m. It doesnt mean the building 7.5m taller.

Think of it this way - if you want to build a 200m skyscraper then you could set the ground floor datum as 100.00 then you half your construction costs.

Looks like Lloyds could be staying in St. William House. In an announcement that they are closing their call centre in Newport and moving the jobs to Cardiff it is stated that they will be 'refurbishing' their existing offices to accommodate the call centre, which I presume is St. William House.

'Refurbishing' = ramming in as many cubicles as we can

Im not sure it's a done deal that Lloyds are going to come back to St William House. The assertion in the Argus that "...the Cardiff office is being refurbished..." is not a direct quote from Lloyds:

https://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/24087889.lloyds-bank-close-newport-offices-move-cardiff/

Lloyds Bank told the Argus that this move will cause no job losses, and the Cardiff office is being refurbished to provide "a state of the art, modern workspace".

It may turn out to be the case, but I suspect that they are going to play the SWH landlord off against the market for new space in central Cardiff .

The landlord will be highly motivated to retain Lloyds because it's highly unlikely they will find someone else who needs that amount of space and it wont be easy to let that building to multiple tenants. Lloyds will want a relatively prestigious building as it will be their only HO location in Wales. They will also demand the highest environmental credentials, and although the truth is that re-use is likely to be better than new build because of the embedded carbon, it probably doesn't work like that when corporations report the environmental impact of their leased estate.

I'm not convinced that SWH can tick these two boxes no matter how much it is improved. So, If I had to guess I would say that it will end up being redeveloped into a residential or mixed-use high rise scheme.

It's a really ugly building so hopefully they do move to John St and it gets redeveloped. It doesn't suit a central location, looks like something on an office park by the M4.

Have the developers forgotten this building exists? Nothing seems to have happened here for a very long time. They haven't even bothered to pave/plant/finish off the ground surrounding the building. It's just an abandoned building sitting within a lifeless building site.

Have the developers forgotten this building exists? Nothing seems to have happened here for a very long time. They haven't even bothered to pave/plant/finish off the ground surrounding the building. It's just an abandoned building sitting within a lifeless building site.

From what I can gather, the work seems to have paused following the decision by Loyds Bank to remain in St William House. I imagine the developers are waiting to secure a new anchor tenant before finishing the building. At least I hope its not something more serious than this!

I do hope the office market picks up a bit in Cardiff as plot 2 at John St (while looking very aesthetically pleasing in my opinion) comes with a further 10 or so floors of grade A office space, let alone projects like 'The Ledger' at Central Quay.