The American Embassy in Mayfair in central London is to be converted into a luxury hotel as part of a £1 billion restoration of Grosvenor Square.

The Embassy is due to move to its new home in Nine Elms, Battersea next year.

The Grade II-listed modernist block will be converted into a 137-bedroom, five-star hotel with a spa and ballroom for 1,000 guests, according to plans to be submitted to Westminster Council.

The complex will also include six shops and five restaurants. A public exhibition detailing the scheme is being held during April.

Grosvenor Square has been America’s largest European embassy since the 1960’s. The move to Battersea will end a US association with Grosvenor Square that goes back more than 200 years. The site has long been the focus of protest against US government policy; most famously the anti-Vietnam war demonstrations of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.

New owners, the Qatari Investment Authority sovereign wealth fund, now plan to return the ‘fortress site’ to open, expansive green space for residents and visitors alike.