HotelChatter

For those of you who haven’t had the chance to see it with your own eyes, the construction site is quite remarkable. The Shard is being built literally on top of London Bridge station, one of the city’s main public transport terminals. Along with a number of lower-rise (office) buildings, it’s created a screaming mess for several years, which you can now start to see coming together.

To recap, the Shangri-La hotel will be on floors 34-52 of the Renzo Piano-designed tower, with 185 rooms, 17 suites and various dining and drinking options that take advantage of the views. We’re looking forward to trying out the infinity pool for a bit of float-in-the-sky feeling.

Another high-profile 2013 opening we had a chance to walk by is the London outpost of Edition hotels; the transformation of the historic Berners Hotel into Schrager & Marriott’s lifestyle brand. With the scaffolding starting to come down, the red-brick façade that dates back to the 1800s is beginning to reveal itself.

The hotel's location is pretty ideal, wedged between Soho to the south and Fitzrovia’s Charlotte Street just a block or two northeast. We hope it can help revamp some of its immediate surroundings; the stretch of Oxford Street west of Tottenham Court Road we would generously describe as underwhelming, and the Royal Mail depot that’s on the next block doesn’t scream luxury boutique hotel to us. The Edition website still has nothing other than the location listed for 2013, as well as Miami Beach, New York, and Bangkok. Sigh… we’ll just have to be patient a little longer.

[Images: HotelChatter, renderings Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts]