Bolder, brighter Birmingham

A stroll across the centre of Birmingham will take you from the Mailbox to Millennium Point via the iconic new Selfridges building, a walk that underlines just how far the city has reinvented itself economically and architecturally in the last decade. The problem is that to get from one to the other you would have to negotiate a soul-destroying roundabout using dark, concrete tunnels – the so-called Paradise Circus.

The regeneration process in Birmingham is incomplete, especially in the city’s Eastside. And worryingly, the building programme is faltering. Paradise Circus, for instance, despite the fact it is screaming to be knocked down, has been on the drawing board for several years. The question for the city now is can it finish off what it has started?

A key project with a question mark hovering above it is the municipal library, which is connected to Paradise Circus. In early 2003 the council announced plans to knock down the existing structure – described by commentators as “brutalist” – and replace it with Richard Rogers-designed towers elsewhere, but since then the project has been put on hold.

The revamp of Birmingham New Street station has been talked about for 10 years and although Faithful & Gould has been appointed as QS and Turner & Townsend as PM, there is still no developer on the scheme. The same goes for the public transport system. Everyone agrees a city of Birmingham’s size needs one, but plans for an underground or tram system have yet to materialise.

The city is also in dire need of grade A – in other words new – office space (see box). The last lot to be built was at 1 Colmore Square. Paul Brownsword, who runs Gleeds’ Birmingham office, says: “There are no offices coming to market for the next two years. There’s nowhere where a company could move in and take six floors. Local solicitors like Wragge & Co are bursting at the seams and many are relocating to London.” The lack of offices is said to stem in part from a reluctance among developers to build speculatively.

Now a change of local government appears to be slowing things down further as the new Conservative-Lib Dem coalition is understood to be reviewing all the previous government’s plans. One source said: “These two parties have been in opposition in Birmingham for nearly 20 years. It’s led to a lot of postponement because they are now on a huge learning curve.”

Despite all this, consultants in Birmingham are far from twiddling their thumbs. Cyril Sweett, for example, reckons it has enough work coming up to need an extra 200 staff for its Birmingham branch within the next three years. Gleeds is looking to add 24 new people next year to its 18-strong Birmingham team.

And indeed, a number of important projects are getting off the ground. One is the redevelopment of Longbridge, the former site of MG Rover, which laid-off 5,000 staff six months ago after the company collapsed, impacting the region significantly. The site, now owned by the developer St Modwen and local development agency Advantage West Midlands, will form a key link in the Central Technology Belt, an area being created for technology businesses (see box). The belt stretches from the Black Country north of Birmingham to Malvern, south of the city. Born out of the first Rover crisis in 2000, it is aimed at replacing jobs lost through the slow death of the area’s manufacturing industry.

Geoff Palmer, chief operating officer of the public-private organisation in charge, Central Technology Belt, says: “The belt tries to link areas of expertise, both existing and planned.” Thus the corridor includes Aston Science Park, which is already up and running, Pebble Mill, the former home of the BBC currently being turned into a biotechnology park, as well as Longbridge.

Office projects are also underway, such as Baskerville House, a £30m scheme. The project will transform a council building into six storeys of grade A office space, due to open in July 2006. The QS on the job is MDA and the project manager is Mace. Rob Kennedy, director, MDA said: “We are gutting the whole thing, but keeping the facades and archways and adding two floors.”

Another project starting to happen is the Cube, an iconic, mixed-use building that will house 120,000 sq ft of offices. Further schemes include a £500m university hospital at Selly Oak and Battery Park, a £270m mixed use regeneration development led by J Sainsbury in the same area.

Past success stories in Birmingham, such as the Bullring and Brindley Place, suggest that the city can get such important projects done. Local QSs and project managers are certainly ready to get on with the work. But the future will depend on both developers and the new council holding their nerve.