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Centenary Square development 2017-18

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Elmdon boy, I agree. I was thinking how lovely some of the old pics were. Why fix something that isn't broken. Surely less money could have been spent on just keeping the area clean and tidy.

And what's with the 'area central' inclusion in the address! Is it to match the 'central' in the 'grand central station' that had a perfectly good name of 'new street station'.
 
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Elmdon Boy said:
What a mess, it looked perfectly all right to me before all this work. The cost, and for what, I,m sure the money could have been .spent better elsewhere.
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I am sorry to disagree but I go round Birmingham a lot taking photographs and a few years ago most of this "Arena Central" site was AWFUL. I am sure Ell has some photos to show how bad it was

Central TV had moved out leaving a crumbling and derilict building, down Bridge St there was a horrible car park, and I think an old disused hospital building. The only "decent" buildings on the site were Alpha Tower and the Crowne Plaza hotel (plus the disused old bank building).

Once the whole site is covered in mostly new buildings, and the site landscaped, it will be a credit to the city.

And you say the money could have been spent better elsewhere, but this is not council or government money, it is money put up by private developers (their own money) in the hope they can sell or rent the buildings afterwards.

One of the buildings being built (shown in Ell's 3rd photo above with the "squares") is being built for HSBC UK bank to move their London headquarters to Birmingham. What a coup for the city that is, a major bank moving their UK headquarters to Birmingham, and hundreds of new jobs in the city.

Another building being built on the site is for HMRC (HM Revenue and Customs). Again they are consolidating staff from a number of buildings (some from London) in this one building in Birmingham. Again another coup for the city.

These companies would only come here if there are high quality modern buildings, such as those being built on the Arena Central site.

Birmingham is competing with cities all over the world for business, to encourage companies to come here, provide jobs here, pay taxes here.

Did you know Birmingham has more cranes (meaning buildings being built) than any city outside London, all good news for the city.

Without these large modern developments companies would go elsewhere.

p.s. Look at the huge Media City development in Manchester. It was so impressive that the BBC decided to move many of their employees there from London. Now BBC Breakfast TV comes from there and look how many items on Breakfast TV now come from Manchester.

Even Sports Relief that was on BBC 1 all last night came from there. You cant buy this sort of publicity for a city and I only wish Birmingham could have built a "Media City" a few years ago.

We know Birmingham has a bad reputation, we know many companies are looking to move out of London due to the high cost, so the only way they can be encouraged to come here is for large modern offices to be built. And that is what Arena Central will become.
 
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hello guilbert no appologies needed we all have our opinions... most of my camera time is spent capturing our older buildings before they are demolished and i do take on board what you have said and i agree change must happen( maybe with all the revenue expected to be bought in the council could spare a few bob to give the hall of memory a good clean up) but all this has over the years been at the cost of losing our historical buildings which is fine for those who are not bothered about the wonderful architecture we have lost over the years.. but to be honest i just cant get excited about these new developments that are being slung up in no time at all...i think a lot of us know full well that in other 50 or so years they too will be looking dull and drab and will no doubt herald yet another revamp of the city....i could use many examples of the council making bad errors of judgement but again will choose the magnificent josiah mason college that was demolished to make way for the library that was opened in 1974 closed about 2014 which as we know has also been recently demolished...(life span of about 40 years) also demolished was the original library which sat alongside the college and was another wonderful building....i really would love to know how many can justify losing the college to a building that was built in haste with no thought given to its design or how long it was expected to last....always looked more like a car park to me ..damp and dreary inside and buckets dotted around to catch the leaks....posting pics of josiah mason college and what replaced it..we can just see the original library to the left of the college...i know what view i would have chosen to look at...i always have and always will mourn the loss of so many great buildings and they have not finished yet..:(

lyn

josiah mason college (1).jpeg library opened 1974 (1)chamberlain square.jpeg
 
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>most of my camera time is spent capturing our older buildings

Astoness, thanks for the reply.

I also capture photos of the lovely old buildings in Birmingham and I am aware of course of the demolition of Josiah Mason college and many other fine buildings in Birmingham in the 1960s and 1970s.

Sadly they have gone and we cant do much about it now (I hope Herbert Manzoni is turning in his grave!).

However I do think the days of demolishing those type of buildings have mostly gone (though I do feel sad about Island House that was over by Moor St station that was demolished 3 or 4 years ago).

To be honest there was little of merit on what is the Arena Central site.

The only historic building on that site is the old Municipal Bank (that was built as a Freemasons headquarters I believe) but it has been empty for years.

Luckily that "Municipal Bank" building has been taken over by one of our universities and will start to be used in the future.

While we mostly all love old buildings they are not suitable as modern office space. Often they are full of asbestos and are not easy to wire up for modern computers and wi fi and other cabling so will never be used by large companies.

Every city does need to keep its old buildings, but no city is going to survive and grow if it does not provide modern office space.
 
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Can I say one other thing.

Note I am 68 years old so no spring chicken.

But I do see a lot of nostalgia on this forum, the feeling that everything was better "back then".

Now I am from London and moved to Birmingham with my company back in 1979 and have lived in the area ever since.

(Note when I told my work colleagues in London I was moving to Birmingham they thought I was mad, it had then, and still has, a terrible reputation in London).

Now some of you may not like to hear this but Birmingham was an awful place back in 1979.

Many companies were going bankrupt and the old "metal bashing" industry the city was famous for was closing down.

Whole areas of the city were laid waste (much of it still is like parts of Digbeth and the Jewellery Quarter).

The Bull Ring shopping centre was awful, New St station was awful, much of the area round Broad St was awful.

Here is a photo I took in the early 1980s of the canals that gives an idea what parts of Birmingham were like back then. It was not a great place to live or visit.

Brum.jpg

We had horrible pedestrian underpasses all over the city, full of rubbish, graffiti, and vomit. Luckily most of these have now gone.

We had strikes almost every day at British Leyland (till the union leaders drove the company out of business) and we had the Handsworth riots.

We had cars and buses and lorries clogging up much of the inner city (remember how vehicles poured down New St and Corporation St?)

The city is FAR better than it was when I moved here in 1979.

We have a nicer Bull Ring and New St station, vehicles have been removed from much of the city centre so it is more pleasant to walk around, many of the horrible pedestrian underpasses have gone and many of the horrible 1970s Brutalist buildings have gone.

The area round Broad St, with Brindley Place, the ICC and NIA is now a thriving area. (when I used to walk round there in the 1980s it was deserted and I could walk round there for hours and not see anyone).

The city was dying when I came here in 1979, now it is on the way up, and much of that is to do with modern redevelopments.

If the city had kept its old Bull Ring and New St station and so on the city would end up dying, nobody would have wanted to come and live and work here.
 
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thanks for the last 2 posts guilbert i did not realise you are from london and of course i agree with most of what you are saying...i think with me its that if these new developements only have a short life span and cant stand the test of time then the future of our historical buildings is slowly diminishing ...noted that you said you think the days of demolishing our old buildings has mostly gone...i reckon thats because there are not many left now:D but i am not totally convinced that the old ball and chain has finished just yet

i agree about island house i was following its demise and did take photos of it....i think that went to make way for HS2 as will the nearby fox and grapes pub which i really find upsetting but as our dad always said "what will be will be" thanks for the interesting posts

lyn
 
Astoness said:
noted that you said you think the days of demolishing our old buildings has mostly gone...i reckon thats because there are not many left now
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I guess your comment about "not many left" was tongue in cheek because Birmingham still has many fine buildings.

Sadly the city does have a poor reputation when it comes to architecture, but when I walk around Colmore Row, Waterloo St, Bennetts Hill and surrounding roads I still see many fine buildings.

The Jewellery Quarter has many fine buildings, but sadly like this one they are often sitting there empty and decaying.

JQ1.jpg

The area around Snow Hill (Hampton St) also has many fine building, like this one below, but they are now mostly occupied by people who don't care about them or look after them (I don't include this building below as one that is not being looked after but other ones nearby are not well maintained).

JQ2.jpg

Anyway I think I am straying well off topic so had better stop now before I get told off.
 
The HSBC site used to look like this before they demolished what was left on the Central TV site.

This was in 2013 shortly after the Library of Birmingham opened.



The Hudson Bay Building was still standing in 2014 before it was demolished in 2015!



The buildings on Bridge Street and Holliday Street were concrete eyesores before they were demolished!

Also 2014.

 
yes guilbert my comment was tongue in cheek hence the little :Dagree again that we have many fine buildings still dotted around ...as you say round the jewellery quarter and gt hampton st/constitution hill.........trouble is a lot are in such bad disrepair ...for the past 10 years i been going around with my camera so its amazing we have never bumped into each other...i best get off now before i have to ban myself:rolleyes:

lyn
 
Guilbert. Just a slight correction. The Municipal Bank was built as such. The masonic temple was next door (as map and photo shows). It was the victim of "developers"
map c 1950 showing minical bank and masonic building.jpg masonic%20hall & municipal bank.jpg
 
A part of the Masonic Temple still survives it is the Frieze that went around the front of the building this is the Frieze in store https://www.flickr.com/photos/dofar...QRd-suojir-trdLhn-t9BRs1-t9D5Bs-toTgK3-t9D1J7
We were told that it would go on the new HSBC building, I suspect that this may now not be possible?


mikejee said:
Guilbert. Just a slight correction. The Municipal Bank was built as such. The masonic temple was next door (as map and photo shows). It was the victim of "developers"
View attachment 123921 View attachment 123922
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Gilbert, re posting 66, you have hit the nail on the head. I am involved in construction and at 81 have seen so many changes on the Health and Safety front that I sometimes wonder how we ever made it to today and as some of you know I have great fun picking up the 'elfnsafety problems that did not arise in the early part of the 20th Century, but would now bring countless prosecutions. Reverting to theme, these older buildings are full of asbestos ( usually the most dangerous type), a great deal of their wiring does not meet cuŕrent requirements and they certainly do not meet the requirements for the disabled. The problems lie in bringing them up to spec, the costs involved are astonomic, to dispose of Asbestos is covered by so much legal requirement and costs so much that demolition is the only answer, the asbestos clearance is still costly as is the disposal of it, but once cleared, the site flattened and a clean bill of health given, work can proceed apace, with renovation, local council requirements still mean long delays as the site is inspected and reinspected. Then you have the added problems of people who decide that a building must be listed, which means a single window can suddenly cost anything from £600 to £2000 and the price of a hand carved hardwood door.....out of this world. I love old buildings and always hope that the demolition men have a contact with an architectural antique salvager, so that any pieces of historic or artistic interest can be saved. Some of the brutalist architecture of the 1950s and 1960s does deserve to be destroyed, some of the modern glass and steel buildings also should never have been built, but there are new buildings that have a beauty and grace that is remarkable and they are fit for purpose and therein lies the crux, regardless of their beauty and appeal, they are not fit for purpose and cannot be made so at a viable price.

Bob
 
The area in front of the new rep, new library and symphony hall was laid out and landscaped in the 1980s and I thought was a pleasant open area, so why now churn it up again. There needs to be nice open areas for visitors not just more office buildings although I appreciate we need office space for commerce . There is still a lot of office space to rent existing around the city.We also need openness to attract visitors. Cranes dotted around the city skyline and road traffic diversions and upheaval seems to have permanently existed all my life in Brum as if it has to be a permanent fixture. You never see cranes and road works in artists impressions of what an area will look like when finished, but of course it never does get finished!
 
The Alpha Tower in 1979.
30689219_942064469304626_8583704891600657972_n.jpg
 
Barr Beacon, completely agree with you with so called Centenary Square, At 87 I can remember it when it was a large green area with path flower beds trees and plenty of benches, large city centres need their green spaces to rest and relax, what has Birmingham got besides Saint Phillips ? Why was it not left that way, with the Hall of memory one end and the colonnades the other, perfect. Eric
 
Grass and open spaces do not bring in rates and taxes plus the cities desire, I presume, to ape Manchester and London.
 
Kat7272 said:
Elmdon boy, I agree. I was thinking how lovely some of the old pics were. Why fix something that isn't broken. Surely less money could have been spent on just keeping the area clean and tidy.

And what's with the 'area central' inclusion in the address! Is it to match the 'central' in the 'grand central station' that had a perfectly good name of 'new street station'.
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Kat7272 , it's probably some offshoot or other from over the pond , that one of the boffins that gets money for doing nothing latched onto while he was in the USA
 
Easier to do everything at once especially with the building of the Midland Metro extension to the Hagley Road.

The area near the Alpha Tower is Arena Central.

 
Yes Radiorails, people do not count anymore, it's all about business and money, and what's wrong with copying other cities if their ideas are worth copying ? Eric
 
cookie273uk said:
it's all about business and money
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I do sometimes get fed up with the "it was much better in my day" attitude on this web site.

It has ALWAYS been about business and money.

Why do you think Mathew Boulton set up his business in Birmingham, to make money.

What was used to build all the canals in the area, money of course.

Why did Watt come down from Glasgow to work in Birmingham, to make Steam Engines and to make money.

Birmingham is known as the "The City of a thousand trades". Why do you think people setup all those businesses, to make money.

What do you think paid for all the developments that Chamberlain did (building New Street, Corporation Street etc), money of course.

What do you think paid for the building of the Council House, the Town Hall, and other civic buildings, money of course.

It has always been about making money.

Birmingham would not be the size it is today if people had not come here to work and make money.

And if Birmingham is going to compete with every other city in the world it needs to build more offices, more houses, improve its transport network etc, and that all takes money.

We all saw the Gold Coast on TV recently with the Commonwealth Games, the sunshine, the beaches, the skyscrapers, the modern city.

How many people would love to live and work there.

When companies have a choice of where to put their new headquarters there is a lot of competition to Birmingham, and if we do nothing they will all go elsewhere and the city will die.
 
I can see where guilbert is coming from in his post. However, I looked at the Birmingham Gov. web site for the Paradise and Centenary information. Yes , open spaces and a goodly number of trees. But as with most modern developments in towns these days there is never a blade of grass, except those that eventually sprout up through cracks in paving. The only grass I have noticed, in photos here, is that at Snow Hill by the new tramway tracks. The city always has had good public parks, as does many UK cities, but we know they were created for recreation by those living in densely built up areas. Maybe the city fathers are of the same view as their ancestors about this.
Lots of people are and have been attracted attracted to the city, but equally there are an awful lot who have left - this Forum has quite a few exiles and I am sure south-western English towns are not unique in having a lot of 'Brummies' living in their area.
Since 1951, from the link the population dropped but there has been a big increase this century, due to a higher birth rate?
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/how-birminghams-population-changed-1801-8803333
 
We all have our point of view and I think that is a good thing, free speech is one of the things I love my country for and I hope we never loose it but there have been changes in my opinion for the worse, people do not seem so friendly, helpful or caring as the used to be (I could be wrong). Life seemed much slower and less stressful, we were not so obsessed with money and material things. I left school in 1944 and jobs were plentiful - and permanent, I had 3 before I entered the RAF in 1948, and when I left in 1956 once again it was so easy to obtain employment. I had the choice of 5 jobs I chose P.O. Telephones, I had security(important when you take out a mortgage), a chance to get on and a good pension scheme (this was before it was privatised), but now most of Birmingham's industry seems to have gone, jobs are no longer plentiful, and what remain seem to be low paid insecure in the service industry. That is why I preferred life as it was in the 30's, 40's and 50's. Rant over, sorry for going of thread. Eric
 
I once interviewed Sir Herbert Manzonie. He told me of his plans back in the 1930s to take all motor traffic out of the centre of Birmingham. Does anyone have a problem with this?
Cities develop in concentric circles and it is a pity that Queensway ran through the Georgian ring of the city but it had to go somewhere.
In 1970 I was a member of a group which presented a plan to Birmingham City Council to pedestrianise New Street. The council rejected the idea but 20 years later this idea came true.

As I have been away for a few days I have read through several pages of this thread and spotted two errors in posts which I think should be corrected.
New Street Station is still called New Street Station not Grand Central Station. Grand Central is the shopping centre above the station.
The old Municipal Head Office was not formerly a Masonic Hall. That was the building next door recently demolished. Someone else has already pointed this error out.
 
The old Masonic Hall when it became the Engineering & Building CentreEBC Broad St 1.jpg EBC Broad St 2.jpg EBC Broad St 3.jpg
(scanned copy of full leaflet available should anyone want it)
 
On the cover of the first one you will see a Frieze that went around the front of the building, this was stripped from the building before it was demolished and put into storage, when it came time to demolish the ATV studios the Frieze was moved to a new storage we (photographers ) were told that it would go around the new HSBC building to date I aint not never (sorry) seen the Frieze on the new HSBC building unless someone has seen it? any way this is what part of it looked like when they moved it to the new storage https://www.flickr.com/photos/dofar...etj-trdLhn-sucQRd-t9BRs1-t9D5Bs-t9D1J7-toTgK3


Neil How said:
The old Masonic Hall when it became the Engineering & Building CentreView attachment 126313 View attachment 126314 View attachment 126315
(scanned copy of full leaflet available should anyone want it)
Click to expand...
 
Horsencart, not being one to cast nastursiums but I don't think that the powers-that-be always tell the truth. I also think it's a case of left hand not knowing what right hand is doing. I remember someone at the library telling me that there was a colossal amount of archive material still in storage beneath the old library and when the new one was built this would all come out. I ain't never not seen that neither!
 
Does this mean someone told me porkies, sniff, a small tear forms in the left eye dabs same eye with a snot filled hanky, hang about that reminds me I have a photo of a load of ledgers that were in storage near to the Art Gallery, all? the ledgers we tipped into a Skip and moved of site now where is that photo back soon
 
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