The team behind The Mailbox has vowed to create a new landmark development for Birmingham after acquiring the vacant Post & Mail building on Colmore Circus.
The 500,000 sq ft site, which has been vacant since last October when Trinity Mirror’s Midland titles moved to a new home at Ford Dunlop, has been bought by Birmingham Development Company (BDC) following months of uncertainty about the building’s future after a previous deal fell through.
BDC - which is headed by Alan Chatham and Mark Billingham - has built its reputation on the back of The Mailbox development which saw the company transform the city’s former sorting office into an award-winning mixed use development that has attracted such stellar occupiers as Harvey Nichols and Armani. The £100 million second phase of the development, The Cube, is currently being built out by BDC’s main contractor arm Buildability.
Mr Billingham, who has known the site since his days at Grimleys when he let space in the building, said they had not been deterred from embarking on a new project by the current downturn in the economy.
“The challenging environment is also an opportunity when others don’t have the availability of funds and perhaps the appetite at the moment,” he said. “We have been keeping an eye open for opportunities in the city but it is difficult to find something of real interest. We wanted another great big lump to develop - that’s what we enjoy.
“When Alan and I walked through the building there was certainly a feeling of deja vu from when we first walked through the old sorting office that became The Mailbox. It is a monster of a place and straight away we started to visualise what we could do with the building.
“Our hope is to create something on a par with the previous two schemes but we don’t know what yet.
“In effect we have no planning permission for the site so we are hoping to get in an application in the next couple of months - we certainly have no plans on just sitting on it.
“It’s located in a part of the city that has significantly changed in recent years with that end of Colmore Row now semi-pedestrianised thanks to other recent developments in the area. At this stage we don’t know how high we might be able to go but we believe a mixed use is possible - that is what we do best - so possibly a hotel as there are very few in that part of the city and even residential when the market comes back to some kind of normality.”
Coun Mike Whitby, Leader of Birmingham City Council, said: “Birmingham Development Company is a company with vision and an excellent track record of delivering innovative projects and it is fantastic news that they have chosen another prominent building in the city as their next scheme.”
GVA Grimley and Eversheds acted on behalf of BDC.
