Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on November 27, 2025
3 min readLast updated: January 20, 2026
Add as preferred source on GoogleJPMorgan plans a massive 3-million-square-foot tower in London's Canary Wharf, potentially ranking among Europe's largest buildings.
By Tommy Reggiori Wilkes and Iain Withers
LONDON (Reuters) -Wall Street's biggest bank, JPMorgan, has announced plans to build a 3-million-square-foot (280,000 square metres) tower in London's Canary Wharf financial district.
Here is how JPMorgan's riverside tower, whose final design and height are yet to be determined, would compare to some other large European buildings, by floor space:
COEUR DEFENSE IN PARIS
The 2001-built office complex in Paris' La Defense district has 3.8 million square feet of space. It is not strictly one building, but made up of two 160-metre towers and three 40-metre lower-rise buildings, according to the website of the La Defense district. The offices are leased out to various companies.
LONDON'S SHARD
The tallest tower in Britain, the 310-metre-tall Shard has about 1.3 million square feet of space.
Completed in 2012, it is home to offices, a hotel, restaurants, expensive apartments and a top-floor bar and open-air viewing deck offering 360-degree views of up to 40 miles.
ROMANIA'S PALACE OF THE PARLIAMENT
Built by Romanian communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in the mid-20th century, the colossal Parliament Palace is one of Europe's roomiest, with some 3,000 rooms in total.
Figures on its size vary, but most sources say it is around 3.9 million square feet. Romanian guidebooks tout the building as the world's second-largest administrative building after the Pentagon in the United States.
Thousands of tonnes of crystal, marble and wood were hauled to Bucharest from across Romania for the construction which includes glitzy halls, secret tunnels and a nuclear bunker.
22 BISHOPSGATE IN THE CITY OF LONDON
Completed in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic in late 2020, 22 Bishopsgate is a 2.1-million-square-feet 62-storey skyscraper that is broader than the Shard. It is the second tallest building in London and the UK.
In a sign of the rebound in demand for prime office space, the fund arm of developer AXA said in January the building was fully let.
COMMERZBANK'S FRANKFURT SKYSCRAPER
The tallest building in Europe when completed in 1997, the tower is the HQ for Germany's Commerzbank. Reaching 259 metres tall, or 300 metres if you include an antenna spire at the top, it has around 1.3 million square feet of space, and was designed by architects Foster + Partners, which is also working on JPMorgan's planned building.
FRANCE'S HEXAGONE BALARD
The hexagonal headquarters of the French armed forces, the building's site has about 163,000 square metres (1.8 million square feet) of floor space.
Built in 2015, lead construction company Bouygues said more than 13,000 people worked on the project, which has a roof "evoking the wings of a stealth bomber". More than 9,000 military staff work across the sprawling campus.
THE LOUVRE PALACE
The most-visited museum in the world, the Parisian palace has in excess of 200,000 square metres (2.2 million square feet) of total floor space after additions and modifications, according to its website. The museum's priceless art and objects on public display are spread over a much smaller space, however.
Originally built in the 12th century, the Louvre was for centuries the official residence of the kings of France, until Louis XIV - weary of rebellious crowds in Paris - abandoned it for Versailles.
(Reporting by Tommy Reggiori Wilkes and Iain;Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)
A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building with multiple floors. They are typically designed for commercial, residential, or mixed-use purposes and are characterized by their height and architectural style.
Floor space refers to the total area of a building's floors, measured in square feet or square meters. It is an important metric for determining the capacity and usage of a building.
Infrastructure financing involves funding for the construction and maintenance of essential facilities such as roads, bridges, and buildings. It often includes public-private partnerships to leverage investment.
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