For years now I’ve been waiting for Microsoft to open a store in London. My hopes were raised a few years ago when rumours started that there were plans for such a shop to open in Covent Garden — those plans sadly fell through. A year ago my hopes were renewed when Microsoft announced that they would be opening a Store on Oxford Street, right at the heart of London’s main shopping street.

Since that announcement things have been very quiet about the store. The shop has been boarded up for months now and whenever I find myself near Oxford Circus I check out whether there’s any sign of progress but I’ve yet to see any.

That was until yesterday when I was tipped off about the plans for the store, or “Project George”, as its codenamed. (I assume it’s George from St George and the Dragon.)

The exterior plans for Project George

In a nutshell Microsoft see this store as its UK and Europeans flagship store, it will comprise of 3 floors from the ground to the second floor.

The proposals will create a large, high quality, refurbished and reconfigured retail unit that will serve as Microsoft’s UK and European flagship store.

The plans show that the store will have a number of illuminated signs to show off the Microsoft logo to all shoppers.

The name “Project George” is written on many of the application’s documents

The original plans for the London Store show how Microsoft was embarking on some significant renovations of the shop to address a few things:

Introduce a new, accessible entrance to the Store at the side of the building

Add a new feature staircase in the centre of the building going from the ground floor all the way up to the 2nd floor

Removal of some structural columns and replace the all floors

The plans for the central staircase

These plans were approved in late 2017. I think things have been progressing with the renovations but it seems like somethings haven’t worked out quite as hoped.

In more recent plans the staircase design has changed, perhaps to accommodate some unforeseen issue. But, more importantly in one document it is outlined that the floorplates were thinner than anticipated and therefore not able to take the expected load of the construction sequence. In May a request was made to the local council to alter the original approved plans in order to accommodate stronger floorplates.

Following strip out of the building, site investigations revealed that the structure of the floorplates (built in concrete and clay pots) was thinner than previous site investigations had anticipated. The structure was in poor condition and found to be incapable of sustaining the loads required for the construction sequence.

These updated plans were approved but the fact that things haven’t worked out quite as the builders expected makes me think that the Store is some way behind schedule; I really don’t think Microsoft wanted this to take this long.

I’m glad that we have a better understanding of what to expect from the store whenever it opens, it’s just a shame it appears to be behind schedule. I can’t wait for it to open.

Thanks to Henry Edwards for the tip!

If you want to see the documents visit the Westminster.gov.uk website and search for “ 253–259 Regent Street”.