The Paradise Forum shopping mall in Birmingham city centre will be completely closed from this weekend meaning the demolition of Central Library can finally begin.
Developers behind the £500 million Paradise regeneration project have announced that the small retail hub, whose shops shut at the end of last year, will close to pedestrians from November 1.
The mall has remained open following closure of the retail units to allow a quick route for people to walk between Chamberlain Square in front of the old library and Centenary Square and Broad Street.
As a result of Paradise Forum's closure, pedestrians and cyclists will be diverted through Fletchers Walk behind the outgoing Birmingham Conservatoire, emerging in front of Alpha Tower (see map above).
New disabled lifts will be available in Fletchers Walk for access to the conservatoire only.
Demolition of Central Library was originally supposed to be completed by the end of 2015 but work is yet to begin on bringing down John Madin's landmark building despite internal strip out work finishing some time ago.
The long-running Paradise project will eventually comprise eight new, grade A office buildings, a new Millennium Hotel to replace the incumbent Copthorne Hotel and a new traffic flow around Paradise Circus island.
Work on redrawing the route for vehicles around this island has been progressing well since the start of the year and a new traffic flow will come into effect on November 15 with a series of permanent changes (see map below).
There will be full closure of the Paradise Circus one-way traffic loop from Great Charles Street to Paradise Street, running next to Town Hall Birmingham, enabling demolition work to commence on Central Library directly above it.
As a consequence, all traffic will instead be re-routed through a new road layout.
Two-way, single-lane traffic will flow around the existing Paradise Circus one-way traffic loop between Suffolk Street Queensway and Great Charles Street until next summer.
Single lane traffic will remain in effect on Great Charles Street until summer 2016.
There will be also be overnight closures of Great Charles Street, heading out of city from Cambridge Street to Newhall Street, and Margaret Street, between Edmund Street and Great Charles Street, on November 15.
