One last look before it’s gone
IN THE decades since it opened, St David’s House has been home to thousands of office workers.
Now, the once bustling floors are empty ahead of it being demolished.
The so-called “soft” demolition is to begin within days with all remaining furniture and equipment being removed. The plasterboards, broken carpets and stained ceiling tiles all to be torn out.
On paper, the actual demolition is to begin in February. All but one of the shops on the ground floor have now gone. Tesco is the final store to leave.
It will close early today, reopening at its new location in the BBC headquarters building on Monday. Inside the building, there are remnants of its former tenants.
Signs on the stairwell direct you to what once were the offices of Cardiff Bus, Cardiff council, Robert McAlpine, Royal British Legion and Arriva Trains Wales. There are nurses’ rooms throughout the building, and a height chart still attached to the wall in one.
The old Arriva counter is still in place on the fourth floor. Some uniforms abandoned, the holiday entitlement sheets still on show.
Arriva had to have its own plant room to provide heating and power to its staff 24 hours a day.
The building was also where drivers used to sit their driving theory tests.
The building is being demolished to make way for another new building as part of Central Square.
The new building will be known as 5 Central Square.
The decrepit state of the offices inside the building are in stark contrast to the shiny office blocks taking shape nearby.
The building is across the road on Wood Street from the new BBC Wales headquarters and the Hugh James and Cardiff University Journalism School building. On the other side is the new HMRC building.
Soon Cardiff’s new bus station will fill the other unoccupied corner of the site on what was once the even-morerundown Marland House and the neighbouring NCP car park.