Chronic lack of Grade ‘A’ office space in Birmingham city centre

There is currently only 477,133 sq ft of brand new Grade ‘A’ available office space in Birmingham city centre and, with the current annual take up of 500,000 sq ft, of which Grade ‘A’ space is a high proportion, we could run out of Grade ‘A’ offices in Birmingham city centre in early 2015.

The planning application has been made on the site of the former KPMG Birmingham headquarter offices at 2 Cornwall Street – shown pictured here below the artists impression of the new office building. The accountancy firm occupied the whole building until it moved to nearby One Snowhill at the end of 2010.

West Register took control of 2 Cornwall Street last year when it bought the long leasehold from Irish developer, Ballymore, the firm behind the Snowhill development in Birmingham. West Register has appointed CBRE and GVA as joint marketing agents for the scheme.

Associated Architects, on behalf of West Register, has submitted the application for a 263,150 sq ft office tower over 13 floors with 6,250 sq ft of retail space at ground level and up to 200,000 sq ft of Grade ‘A’ offices in Birmingham.

Mark Robinson, Partner at KWB commercial property agents in Birmingham, commented: “Such a scheme, located in the heart of the financial district, is essential to the Birmingham office market competing with other substantial European cities“.