Proposal Made to Turn Ealing Gateway Building into Flats
Former Catalyst Housing offices could be converted in 68 homes
Ealing Gateway is at 26–30 Uxbridge Road. Picture: Facebook
July 23, 2026
A major office-to-residential conversion has been proposed for Ealing Gateway, the landmark glass-fronted building at 26–30 Uxbridge Road, once home to Catalyst Housing and now partly occupied by Peabody. The scheme, submitted by planning consultants SM Planning, seeks prior approval under national permitted-development rights to transform the existing offices into 68 apartments arranged across eight floors, with landscaped communal gardens, cycle storage and fire-safety upgrades.
The proposal (262743PACBSD) for the landmark building next to the Premier Inn follows a wave of similar conversions across central Ealing, where changing work patterns and high vacancy rates have prompted owners to repurpose modern office blocks for housing. Ealing Gateway itself was comprehensively refurbished between 2022 and 2024, with a new reception, business lounge, lifts, showers and cycle facilities, and was marketed as Grade-A workspace benefiting from Elizabeth Line connections. Despite that investment, around 70 per cent of the building remains vacant, reflecting a wider downturn in office demand since the pandemic.
Under the plans, the building’s existing curtain-wall glazing and rooftop plant enclosure would be replaced and adapted to create private terraces for upper-floor flats. The scheme would be car-free, with sixteen accessible parking spaces and over a hundred cycle spaces. A separate full planning application covers the physical works, while the prior-approval submission focuses on the change of use itself.
Ealing Gateway has long been a fixture of the town’s commercial landscape. Built in the early 2000s, it served for years as Catalyst Housing’s headquarters before the organisation merged with Peabody in 2023. Peabody retained part of the building as an operational office while the owner undertook the refurbishment and re-letting programme. The proposed conversion would mark a decisive shift from its corporate past to residential use, echoing other nearby transformations such as International House and Craven House, both converted from offices to flats under similar permitted-development rules.
If approved, the scheme would add new homes to Ealing’s town-centre skyline while continuing the trend of repurposing modern office blocks for housing — a pattern reshaping the character of Uxbridge Road and the wider Broadway area.
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