Huge plans for former Axis site
Five new towers on cards for ‘Goods Station’ project besides Mailbox
FOR decades it was home to the Axis office building and global engineering and design consultancy Atkins but now four acres of land in Birmingham city centre sit surrounded by hoardings and fences, begging for redevelopment.
Now property group Vita which is readying itself to tackle its “most ambitious project” ever as it looks to breathe new life into the long-coveted plot next to the city’s iconic Mailbox complex.
Vita Group is looking to win the hearts and minds of Birmingham’s residents and city leaders as it consults on its ‘Goods Station’ project which would see around 1,000 apartments and a host of other residential and commercial accommodation created across five separate blocks, the tallest of which could hit 49 storeys.
The Cheshire-based group has launched a second round of consultation ahead of submitting plans to the council over the summer, with a view to starting the five-year project in autumn next year.
Development director Jon Weston is the man charged with leading what could prove to be a transformational scheme for the site in Holliday Street.
It has been the subject of applications ever since previous owner London and Continental Railways first outlined plans for four office buildings in 2016.
After wrangling between developers and council planners, government-owned LCR decided to offload the land last year to Vita.
“This is the most ambitious project Vita has taken on because of the scale but also it’s a great opportunity for us because of the number of our brands we want to put in there,” Mr Weson told the Post.
“It’s the biggest single scheme we’ve ever done. It’s challenging but also a great opportunity.
People still want to live in the city, there’s still going to be a massive housing shortage which is only going to get worse Jon Weston
“These sites don’t come along very often and LCR went through a process for an office scheme but the commercial world has moved on quite considerably since then.
“People still want to live in the city, there’s still going to be a massive housing shortage which is only going to get worse so it’s about delivering the right accommodation in the right environment.
“Trends change all the time and there have been a lot of lessons
learned from the commercial market. The last thing we want to do is deliver something that nobody wants to live in because that way everyone loses.”
The name Goods Station is a nod to the location’s former use as a railway depot in the 1920s and the project is Vita Group’s fourth in Birmingham, a portfolio which includes student flats on the old BBC Pebble Mill site in Edgbaston.
Mr Weston is unsurprisingly
upbeat about the new project and its place in the wider city’s ever-changing built environment.
“As a company, we’re going through a new phase and moving away from standalone buildings and this offers us the opportunity to do something at scale,” he concluded.
“This can become a showcase for other potential opportunities in Birmingham, this is not a case of we’re building this and then we’re done with the city.
“We continue to look at other sites in both Birmingham and the wider Midlands as a whole.
Birmingham is a massive market and there are still great opportunities here when you compare it to other cities.”
This current phase of consultation runs until April 25.
Go to the Goods Station website for more details.