The high-rise that stole the sun

You can see the spire of St Giles-in-the-Fields from here, jutting towards the heavens like a remonstrating finger, a rebuke to the earthly sins of the parish’s inhabitants. You can see the Centrepoint, too, and a gaudy yellow sliver of Central Saint Giles. But taller, from my perspective, are the fronds of viper's bugloss and torch lilies that fringe the paths of the garden; the birch trees that rise silver and spectral near the boundary wall. 

I’m sitting on a bench in the leafy sanctuary of Phoenix Garden, a community space sandwiched between the busy thoroughfares of Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road. There used to be seven such plots scattered throughout this area, set up by the Covent Garden Open Spaces Committee on the Blitz-bombed ruins of houses, warehouses, stables. These included a Japanese garden near Long Acre and Endell Street, and an Italianate garden with a sunken pool and faux-ruined temple on the site of the old tin market, although apparently there were also chess and water gardens. Now there’s only one left. And, if you believe the words of manager Louise Gates, it might not be around much longer. 

In 2021, Yoo Capital bought the neighbouring Grade II-listed Odeon cinema, for the bafflingly cheap price of £31mn, and announced their plans to turn the venue into a hotel and events space that would host contemporary circus giant Cirque du Soleil, whose performers would leap and juggle and eat flaming sconces in a purpose-built 600-seat theatre. The space, Yoo claimed, would become “a home for world-class entertainment, hospitality, and culture”; a chance to “[embrace] the energy and diversity of London’s creative future”. 

It seemed reasonable — a way of ensuring that a treasured community asset was retained, at least in part, as an entertainment venue for coming generations, rather than made into yet more luxury housing. But when the planning application was submitted, it was discovered that Yoo’s proposals involved a partial destruction of the building’s existing structure to construct a gargantuan roof extension, radically altering both the building’s street-facing profile and the area’s skyline. What’s more, the Cirque du Soleil events space wasn’t to be the locus at all, having been essentially relegated to the basement; the 220-bed hotel, situated in the roof extension, was the clear focal point. Camden council rejected this initial design, only to approve a slightly modified version with a five-storey roof extension this May — and with it, threatened to plunge most of Phoenix Garden into darkness.