LONDON-A joint venture between Paris-based AXA Real Estate Investment Managers and locally based MGPA has hired Solna, Sweden-based Skanska for a $182 million redevelopment of a building here into a 170,000-square-foot speculative office. The building will be at 6 Bevis Marks in the Aldgate Ward, the city’s insurance district.

The building, designed by Fletcher Priest Architects, will feature floor plates ranging from 6,000 square feet to 17,000 square feet. Construction will begin immediately, and is expected to be complete in fall 2013, four years before the new cross-rail terminal is added nearby.

London, the world’s top office market, has seen a number of new construction projects announced in the past year, as local brokers predict a supply deficit starting this year. Harry Badham, AXA’s director of development for the United Kingdom, said the building will be delivered at a time when new build space will be in short supply. “This development, with its spectacular sky-garden on the 16^th floor, will provide one of the most exciting additions to the skyline in the city’s tower cluster,” Badham said in a statement.