Finest hotel takes shape
Hortons’ is also renovating the impressive Grosvenor Suite, making it once again the centrepiece of the hotel and civic life in Birmingham.
There will also be three new lifts in the seven-storey building and a new entrance in Church Street.
The Grand should be open by summer 2018 – but it is clear there is still a mammoth task ahead for the developers before that date.
“The facade of the hotel has been saved,” Mr Green said. “But the interior is very complex and the work is going to take as long as it needs to take. In the 1960s, the people who owned the hotel lease tried to mod- ernise it, bringing the ceilings down and wrecking the original features. It seems like madness now, but back then people wanted modern buildings not Victorian. It’s made our job a lot more painstaking.”
Hortons has also secured tenants for shops, bars, restaurants and a cafe in units fronting Colmore Row.
Restaurant Gusto will soon be opening, as well as the Alchemist cocktail bar and restaurant, owned by Living Ventures.
There is also an independent coffee lounge, 200 Degrees, which is already winning rave reviews with the Colmore professionals. THE Grand Hotel was first designed by Thomson Plevins and was constructed between 1877 and 1879.
It was built for Isaac Horton, a local property developer and founder of the Horton dynasty, who spotted a demand for hotel rooms for traders arriving in the city at Snow Hill Station.
The building was subsequently extended several times to increase its capacity and facilities and the composition of the French-style façade bears witness to these early alterations.
In 1890, architects Martin & Chamberlain were commissioned to design a major extension to complete the Grand Hotel.
They extended the building to the rear along Barwick Street and completely refurbished the existing interiors to appeal to a more luxury market.
The Martin & Chamberlain extension contains the best interiors in the whole hotel, including those of the Grosvenor Suite, whose richly decorated French style plasterwork and later Art Deco light fittings, led the space to become iconic in Birmingham’s social scene in the 20th century.
Indeed, the role of the building within the civic life of Birmingham was just as important as its physical structure.
The opulent hotel played host to royalty, politicians and film stars, as well as staging many dinners, concerts and dances in the Grosvenor Suite.
The list of those attending functions at or staying in the hotel included King George VI, the Duke of Windsor, Winston Churchill, Neville Chamberlain, Charlie Chaplin, James Cagney and Joe Louis to name but a few.
The removal of unsympathetic additions has exposed layers of history throughout the building.
A stunning staircase with marble columns and cast iron balustrade leads upstairs to a further suite of reception rooms.
Long corridors lead to scores of hollow bedrooms, many stripped back to their bare structure.
The stripping-out of rooms above the Grosvenor Suite has uncovered the giant steel trusses, which support the enormous clear spanning ceiling below. It is believed to be one of the first structures of its kind in the country.
The hotel ran into financial difficulties in the 1960s and from the early 1970s it was leased to a number of hotel chains which each in turn attempted to modernise the building.
The lease was ultimately surrendered back to Hortons’ Estate in August 2002, by which time The Grand was well below standards and closed.