Plans for a giant office and more than 400 new homes on Broad Street have been lodged in the latest phase of the Arena Central scheme.
The proposals, which stand to help create hundreds of jobs, include 212,821 sq ft of prime grade A office space and 412 apartments.
The offices have been designed by architect Ken Shuttleworth’s Make and Two Arena Central will be situated between Alpha Tower and the Municipal Bank.
City-based Glenn Howells Architects has designed the apartments, known as Four and Five Arena Central.
The latest development will add much needed office space in the city and comes after One Arena Central became Birmingham’s first speculative office scheme since recession.
Jonathan Wallis, from Arena Central Developments (ACD), said: “Demolition of the whole of Arena Central has already started and will be complete by the summer and we could be on site by the end of the year with completion end of 2017, ahead of the competition.”
Make said Two Arena Central would be made up of “a series of interconnected blocks featuring a woven cladding pattern of overlapping masonry ribbons” to create a distinctive facade.
The scheme will include two exterior terraces to provide panoramic views across the soon-to-be refurbished Centenary Square.
The plans also allow for 13,500 sq ft of retail space on the ground floor.
It continues a renaissance for Broad Street with schemes like Regal's Left Bank, formerly Regal Tower, Park Regis and One Arena Central all progressing.
A further planning application has been submitted for two residential buildings with more than 400 apartments.
The buildings will be adjacent to Bridge Street and Holliday Street overlooking a public square with two levels of penthouses. One of the buildings will be a slender landmark at 28 storeys while the other is a 12-storey shoulder, both with receptions and retail uses at ground.
The site arrangement seeks to encourage an east-west pedestrian link across the development, connecting the Birmingham Canal to Alpha Square and providing a frontage onto Bridge Street.
The residential tower will have a distinctive “crown top” according to Mr Wallis, who said it would introduce a “striking new addition” to the city’s skyline.
He added: “Birmingham has never seen a truly mixed-use development with offices, retail and residential sitting side by side in a highly managed, landscaped environment in the heart of the city – these two planning applications are the first stages to deliver this vision.”
The 9.2 acre Arena Central site has existing planning consent in place for the delivery of 2.3 million sq ft of mixed-use space, including up to 860,000 sq ft of grade A offices, over 200,000 sq ft of residential units, 2,500 car parking spaces and more than 1.2 million sq ft of leisure and retail units.
Arena Central lies at the heart of Birmingham’s City Centre Enterprise Zone and benefits from simplified planning and reduced business rates as well as forming a significant part of the city’s vision for regeneration, as laid out in the Big City Plan.
Clearance of the site is already under way with work on the new public realm set to start later this year.
Joint commercial agents on the scheme are GVA and CBRE, residential agents are Knight Frank.
