103 Colmore Row - Approved Replacement

Approved Replacement

In December 2006, British Land acquired the freehold of the tower from Omega Land for £25 million. They announced their intentions to demolish the tower and replace it with another office tower. This will be their first development outside of London.

British Land commissioned Hamilton Architects to design the tower and between 9 October and 11 October 2007, they hosted a public consultation in the banking hall of 103 Colmore Row to showcase their proposals. The proposal at the public consultation was 163 metres (534.8 ft) tall to the top of a light mast and consisted of 28 occupiable office floors and three plant levels. The tower would be the tallest building in the city, only surpassed by the proposed VTP200. It had a roof height of 137 metres (449 ft). GVA Grimley have been hired as planning consultants and the project will cost £160 million.

A planning application was submitted to Birmingham City Council by GVA Grimley on behalf of British Land on 25 April 2008 for the tower with alterations made to that exhibited in October 2007. It was registered by the city council on the same day was given a planning application reference number of C/02353/08/FUL. A cheque made payable to Birmingham City Council of £61,265 was submitted with the planning application. The proposal was summarised on the Birmingham City Council Planning Department website as:

Demolition of office building & redevelopment to provide 35 storey office building with ground floor retail (class A1), financial & professional services (class A2) and restaurant/cafe (class A3) uses.

Alterations were made to the height, with it being reduced by 3.5 metres (11 ft) to 159.5 metres (523 ft) and the roof height to 134.5 metres (441 ft). The new design also had a further four floors of reception and retail space with the Colmore Row elevation consisting of a four storey colonnade. The tower will also have a green roof to act as a natural habitat for protected bird species and will also provide a 30% reduction in energy use. British Land also hope to achieve a BREEAM 'Excellent' rating for the building. As it is proposed to be constructed on the highest ground in the city centre, it will be one of the most prominent buildings on the skyline. Savills will market the building and it is thought over 2,500 jobs will be created as a result.

The proposal initially received the backing of the Birmingham Civic Society who said that they were 90% happy with the design, however the organisation reversed their decision. The project also met objections from the Twentieth Century Society and the Victorian Society who commented that they were "extremely disappointed" with the proposal. After the public consultation, efforts were made to seek granting the building listed building status from English Heritage. Upon the submission of the planning application, English Heritage wrote to Birmingham City Council that they had concluded that the building should not be listed due to the fact that whilst the building had good qualities of massing, it lacked the high degree of sophisticated architectural detailing that would be expected of a building from this period. They also said that modifications made to the building in the 1990s had considerably compromised the building's architecture and that the interior lacked coherence, although they did comment that the interior of the banking hall did contain many interesting original features.

The proposal received planning permission from Birmingham City Council in late-September 2008. It was closely contested with six councillors voting against the scheme and seven voting for it.