US Embassy in London on the market

The US Embassy in Grosvenor Square is up for sale. Its a 225,000 sq.ft, nine storey building (three of them underground) occupying the western side of the Square, which is in an absolutely prime spot in the wealthly Mayfair area of central London.

Its being sold because the US wants to build a new embassy with state of the art security. Greenwich in southeast London and Isleworth in west London have been mentioned as possible locations, finding a big enough site anywhere in central London would be hugely expensive if not impossible to find.

The US Embassy has been located in Grosvenor Square since 1938 and during World War 2 the embassy was on the opposite side of the square from General Eisenhower’s headquarters. In the middle of the square is a memorial to Franklin Roosevelt and the embassy itself is hard to miss with an aluminium Bald Eagle on the roof with a 35ft wing span.

The asking price for the embassy is reported to be £90million which in the current London property market doesn’t seem that expenisve for the size of building and fantastic location. Its the one embassy where the US government doesn’t own the land, the Duke of Westminster does, and there’s 939 years left on their lease. Moving out to Isleworth about four miles from Heathrow Airport would be a lot less convenient for anyone who had to visit the US Embassy and you wonder if the new one will be more like a prison complex.