There are few commercial property buildings that divide opinion quite like Birmingham Central commercial property Library.
For many it is an imperfection on the landscape, and eyesore that harks back to a dark age of architecture that tarnished Birmingham and continues to cause offense to this day.
However for others, it is a classic example of the Brutalist design movement in which Birmingham led the field and as significant a monument to the city’s history as the Council House, the Jewellery Quarter and the back-to-backs.
Nevertheless what is practically certain is that its days are now numbered.
As soon as Birmingham City Council embarked on its new commercial property library for Birmingham in Centenary Square and the Government proclaimed that it was not minded to list the John Madin-designed inverted ziggurat, the writing was on the wall.
Supporting the council’s decision to commission a new commercial property library has been a long-standing view that Paradise Circus, the eight-acre site on which the commercial property Central Library stands, is a complete disaster of urban design. The Library stands as a cork between the traditional city centre and the successful revitalisation of the western end of the city around the ICC and Brindleyplace.
While the new commercial property library for Birmingham was still a twinkle in Mike Whitby’s eye, Argent-the developer behind Brindleyplace-expressed an interest in the site if the council was ever so minded to get rid of the commercial property Central Library. For the past five years or so the company has been working in conjunction with the council with preferred developer status as the opportunities for the site have been studied.
The latest stage of the development has been the launch of phase two of a public discussion for Paradise Circus with a view to submitting an outline planning application for a scheme that would include the eventual razing to the ground of the whole site.
That includes the commercial property Central Library, The Conservatoire and the commercial property Copthorne hotel and replacing them with up to 1.7 million sq ft of commercial, retail, civic, leisure and commercial property hotel space across 12 buildings. Also, plans include improving pedestrian access and the public realm with new squares and altering the highways around Paradise Circus.
The development is being headed by Gary Taylor, a former Managing Director at Argent who in recent times launched his own development company Altitude. Alongside Gary, Rob Groves-Argent Project Director, both of whom are pretty clear about the challenges the site offers, in terms of reputation and technicality.
Mr Taylor said: “This is probably one of the most complicated pieces of real estate in the country in terms of the work that was started in the 1960s and 1970s and then the rubbish that was built in the ‘80s and ‘90s.”
He further added: “What we have been trying to do is unpick everything with the roads underneath and round the outside –it really is as complicated as it gets.”
Argent may well have already invested £2 million in fees and thousands of man hours in working up the present scheme however the final bill for the finished project is expected to run into the hundreds of millions of pounds.
One of the key costs for the scheme will be the enormous infrastructure investment and it is hoped that this will be financed through tax increment funding or TIFs. This effectively lets the project-which is being supported by the city council as a key landowner on the site-to borrow against the future business rates that would be raised by the project.
At the moment the site raises £1.5 million every year in business rates, however the finished project would see this increase to around £20 million a year. The scheme will also be improved by falling within a proposed enterprise zone which offers various relief from tax and regulation.
The time schedule for the development is around 15 years with the scheme set to be completed in around 2027 and the first three buildings would be a central commercial property office block containing a replacement for the Copthorne commercial property hotel, the new Adrian Boult Hall, and another commercial property office block.
The cost of these first three commercial property buildings would be in the region of £130 million and for the whole scheme to stack up commercially; the scheme will have to obtain pre-lets on at least 40-50 per cent of the space before building work can begin.
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