Lots Road Power Station's transformation complete as Chelsea Waterfront Powerhouse atrium opens to public

Lots Road may have been the first of London’s iconic riverside power stations to be built in 1905 but it is the last of the three decommissioned generators to be fully converted for a new use in the twenty-first century.

Bankside became Tate Modern at the turn of the millennium, while Battersea Power Station’s lengthy £9 billion redevelopment has turned it into a popular shopping destination and luxury apartment building.

More than 20 years since it went dark and six years after its planned completion date, Lots Road’s transformation is unveiled this month as the centrepiece of the Chelsea Waterfront development, where former Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich is understood to have bought a riverfront penthouse in 2018 for about £30 million.

The building whose four chimneys once powered the London Underground now boasts a 100-metre public ‘atrium’ in the former turbine hall, designed by Fiona Barratt-Campbell and set to be lined with shops and restaurants from this summer.

Barratt-Campbell’s design incorporates many original industrial features with two of the original 275-foot chimneys remaining and restored for use as retail units.

There are also multiple references to the building’s past use, including water troughs symbolising the creation of steam; a lighting installation based on an electric current; and a solid granite concierge desk inspired by the coal that once powered the capital.

As the only London power station to be built with windows, Chelsea Waterfront Powerhouse as it is now known, is unique in offering homes in the original building’s skin, once an architectural star of several vintage London Transport posters.

An apartment complex was built within the industrial shell – a process involving moving two million bricks – providing 260 new homes priced from about £1.9 million for a two-bedroom flat.

The new show flats are designed by luxury interiors design studio BAYA, with designers such as Morpheus & Co enlisted for other apartments.

Hong Kong developer CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd bought Lots Road Power Station after it closed in 2002 and have spent more than two decades on its restoration and development into Chelsea Waterfront, a 700-home scheme lying alongside the River Thames and Chelsea Creek.

The 10 buildings, among them two tower blocks, were designed by Sir Terry Farrell, the architect behind the postmodern headquarters for TV-AM in Camden Lock, Charing Cross Station and MI6 headquarters in Vauxhall. There is social housing in two blocks as well as 61 homes designated affordable in the power station itself.

Chelsea Waterfront is in the historically artistic riverside southern part of Chelsea’s SW10 postcode. Cheyne Walk alone offers an astoundingly star-studded roster of former residents from JMW Turner and Henry James to Mick Jagger and George Best.

Lots Road auction house and Chelsea Design District are both nearby and the area is now served by Imperial Wharf on the Mildmay line.