Birmingham council set to appoint masterplanner on £70m scheme ‘within weeks’

The council responsible for delivering the £70m upgrade of Alexander Stadium ahead of the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games has said it will appoint a masterplanner to the job in the next few weeks.

Waheed Nazir, corporate director at Birmingham council, told Building an announcement will be made “early this year”.

Alexander-Stadium-Internal

Nazir said the masterplanner, who will join Mace and Arup on the project team, will be responsible for masterminding the area surrounding the stadium.

This will include a focus on the thousands of extra spectators set for the venue which will see capacity increased from 12,700 to 40,000 during the Games. It will then go down to 20,000 once the games have finished.

In October, the council confirmed Arup had been chosen to deliver the redesign of Alexander Stadium, which will host all the games’ athletics events, plus the opening and closing ceremonies.

That same week Mace was appointed as project manager on the scheme.

Other firms who have landed roles as the city races to be ready in time for the 2022 event include Lendlease, which bagged the contract to build the £350m athletes’ village, and Wates which has won the right to build the new £50m Sandwell Aquatic Centre, which will host the swimming and diving events.

Architects working on the overall Commonwealth Games programme include local firms Glancy Nicholls and Glenn Howells at the village and Gloucester-based practice Roberts Limbrick who worked up the designs for the aquatic centre.