Apartments plan on old Post & Mail site ditched
A 15-STOREY office tower is to be built in Birmingham after developers scrapped plans for apartments.
Chatham Billingham, the team behind the Mailbox shopping mall, secured planning permission in 2015 to build a 14-storey tower featuring offices and apartments on the site of the old Birmingham Post & Mail offices in Weaman Street, off Colmore Circus.
Developers have now thrown out the proposals for 115 apartments to create an office-only project and revised designs submitted.
The change of heart stems from needing a project more in keeping with the site’s immediate surroundings, the vast majority of which is high-density office space. Phase one of the project was completed in 2015 and comprises a new underground car park in the old printing works. The new tower will be built immediately above this.
The development site near Snow Hill station was home to the Birmingham Post and Mail for decades, housed in a complex originally designed by renowned city architect John Madin.
Large parts of the 1960s complex, including the old tower, were demolished in 2005 to make way for what is now The Colmore Building.
Matthew Goer, director at Birmingham-based Associated Architects which has designed the scheme, said: “The Post & Mail building has been designed to reflect its strategic and architectural significance within the Colmore Business District.
“The proposed use of the building has been carefully considered to ensure it complements and enhances the environment. The building’s external appearance takes its cue from the printmaking history of the site.
“Anodised aluminium cladding panels have been chosen to give the building a crisp, metallic appearance, alluding to the plate printing matrices that can be seen on photographic records of the demolished Printing Works building. In addition, the limited colour palette of black, grey and silver represents the appearance of monochrome newsprint.”