Kelly Kerruish, Associate Director at Coverdale Barclay, explores how heritage buildings are driving the City of London’s evolution into a mixed-use, cultural destination. Using BOXHALL City as a case study, it shows how sensitive restoration and strategic storytelling can turn historic spaces into vibrant places people want to spend time.


Over the past few years, the City of London has been evolving from a primarily commercial district into a more mixed-use environment, with a particular emphasis on dining, leisure and hospitality. Increasingly, the area’s heritage buildings are playing a central role in this transformation, offering characterful settings that help brands create compelling experiences.

One example can be found at BOXHALL City, which opened its doors in April 2025, representing BOXPARK’s first new concept since it opened the pioneering street food-in-shipping containers format in Shoreditch in 2011. BOXHALL City brings a more mature line-up of established and emerging industry pros, with all the fun and innovation you'd expect from the BOXPARK family.  It marked an evolution for the BOXPARK brand, not least because it is housed, permanently, in a sensitively restored heritage building in Liverpool Street – the TfL-owned Metropolitan Arcade. 

An Edwardian building, the Metropolitan Arcade has a rich architectural history dating back to its opening as a shopping arcade in 1912, built over the tracks of the Metropolitan line at the advent of electricity. Designed by architect Frank Sherrin, it was home to shops such as a butcher and baker, a booking office and tea rooms. Today, architects McCauley Sinclair have retained many of the original features within the design, including the 100-yard-long glazed roof and exposed steelwork, which have been integrated with modern industrial elements. 

For a communications agency like ours, the building was a tremendous asset in helping us to tell the story of the new BOXHALL concept. By contrasting so completely to BOXPARK’s traditional meanwhile spaces it makes a powerful statement about the brand’s ambitions to offer a more elevated, permanent social experience. 

BOXHALL City is part of a much wider pattern in which heritage buildings across the City are being reimagined as vibrant cultural, social and hospitality destinations. Our work spans multiple historic sites, including Devonshire Square, the former 18th-century warehouse complex just moments from Liverpool Street that has been transformed into a vibrant destination for work, culture and leisure. Its historic architecture, combined with a thriving ground floor and cultural events programme, attracted the attention of global hotel brand Sircle, which this autumn opened its first UK hotel on-site, the Sir Devonshire Square – testament to the role heritage plays in attracting visitors and creating distinctive guest experiences. 

These projects demonstrate the power that lies in our towns and cities’ heritage assets and how heritage spaces, when successfully reimagined, can spark renewed interest, footfall, a sense of identity and emotional connection to place. Indeed, studies have shown that areas with a strong heritage offering can boost footfall by up to 17%, with restored heritage assets often acting as anchors that attract businesses, cultural activity and visitors.

Of course, working with heritage buildings has its challenges. Specialist skills, materials and longer timelines often make these projects more complex and expensive. Additional planning requirements and the need to balance preservation with modern functionality can create further pressures. When handled insensitively, such projects can quickly attract criticism, as illustrated by the debates surrounding proposals for nearby Liverpool Street Station.

But, when heritage is approached with care and authenticity, the results can be transformative. At BOXHALL City, breathing new life into an iconic Edwardian arcade has created a destination that speaks to both its past and to what Liverpool Street is becoming: a lively, diverse and increasingly food-focused part of the City. It also highlights how, with the right strategic storytelling, heritage can serve as a foundation rather than a ceiling for place identity, something we help placemakers and destinations harness to attract visitors, drive commercial success and strengthen identity.

Not every heritage building can be saved, and restoration is not always the right answer. But the City’s ongoing evolution demonstrates that when historic spaces are reimagined with sensitivity and purpose, they can play a fundamental role in shaping places where people want to spend time.