Official Coventry Thread 4

[We-Are-Borg-1987]

A letter in yesterdays Cov Telegraph mentions a leaked gov. doc. that talks of a total of roughly 200,000 civil service jobs being taken out of London! I presume Cov has pretty cheap office rents, so I think when Friargate gets underway it may actually have some tenants in a few years!

[Spread]

News from Property Week
Royal Mail to sell Coventry site
12:33 | 01.12.09

By Jennifer Rigby

Royal Mail has appointed Jones Lang LaSalle to sell its mail centre in Coventry.

The Coventry Mail Centre on Bishop Street, totalling 1.6 acres and 200,000 sq ft of space, and Lower Ford Street car park which totals 0.6 acres, are for sale and can be bought separately or together.

Jonathan Fear of JLL’s Birmingham office said: “We anticipate the successful buyer of this unique site, which lends itself to a variety of uses, subject to planning consent, will have some innovative ideas for conversion or re-development.”

The sales form part of Royal Mail’s rationalisation plans across its UK operations. Two new delivery offices are being built by Royal Mail in Coventry to accommodate some of the staff from the Bishop Street centre.



Read more: http://www.propertyweek.com/story.as...#ixzz0YSFTQDBB

[Dr Pepper]

Originally Posted by We-Are-Borg-1987

I can't wait for them to demolish the Philips building! My gf lives near there in a student house and I absolutley hate going into the centre of Hillfields as it looks so awful! Its amazing the restaurant opposite the scheme has been allowed to get into such a state!This new scheme will really improve things and should act as a catalyst for the surrounding buildings. The large open space they have diagonally opposite the Philips building needs something doing with it, even if they just simply grassed over it, it needs something to break up all that god damn concrete!

That large open space is the local square, it's well used for community events.

[CovAD]

Originally Posted by Spread

News from Property Week
Royal Mail to sell Coventry site
12:33 | 01.12.09

By Jennifer Rigby

Royal Mail has appointed Jones Lang LaSalle to sell its mail centre in Coventry.

The Coventry Mail Centre on Bishop Street, totalling 1.6 acres and 200,000 sq ft of space, and Lower Ford Street car park which totals 0.6 acres, are for sale and can be bought separately or together.

Jonathan Fear of JLL’s Birmingham office said: “We anticipate the successful buyer of this unique site, which lends itself to a variety of uses, subject to planning consent, will have some innovative ideas for conversion or re-development.”

The sales form part of Royal Mail’s rationalisation plans across its UK operations. Two new delivery offices are being built by Royal Mail in Coventry to accommodate some of the staff from the Bishop Street centre.



Read more: http://www.propertyweek.com/story.as...#ixzz0YSFTQDBB

Expect the Royal Mail building to become a MSCP - it's in exactly the kind of location the council wants them - next to the ring road and asily accessed from J1.

The surface car park will probably be built on as part of a larger scheme to regenrate the whol Bishops St area.

[sjs239]

Originally Posted by CovAD

Expect the Royal Mail building to become a MSCP - it's in exactly the kind of location the council wants them - next to the ring road and asily accessed from J1.

The surface car park will probably be built on as part of a larger scheme to regenrate the whol Bishops St area.

As long as they demolish the current building it will be a vast improvement!!!
In all fairness though it would be an ideal place for an mscp, but I would rather they got creative and built something better with the land!!

[NewTroll]

Originally Posted by CovAD

Expect the Royal Mail building to become a MSCP - it's in exactly the kind of location the council wants them - next to the ring road and asily accessed from J1.

The surface car park will probably be built on as part of a larger scheme to regenrate the whol Bishops St area.

Would someone buy that land/building just to build a car park?! Maybe as part of another development.

It's a huge building that's suited for distribution - maybe it'll get a "Mailbox" style makeover.

[Dr Pepper]

Originally Posted by NewTroll

Would someone buy that land/building just to build a car park?! Maybe as part of another development.

It's a huge building that's suited for distribution - maybe it'll get a "Mailbox" style makeover.

No amount of polish could do that. It's also 5 storeys on the side facing town and 3 on the side facing the ring road.

[NewTroll]

Originally Posted by Dr Pepper

No amount of polish could do that. It's also 5 storeys on the side facing town and 3 on the side facing the ring road.

If they don't have enough Polish they could employ some locals!

[CovAD]

Originally Posted by NewTroll

Would someone buy that land/building just to build a car park?! Maybe as part of another development.

It's a huge building that's suited for distribution - maybe it'll get a "Mailbox" style makeover.

I expect the whole area including the car park, the area where the shacks used to be and all around Lamb St to become one big scheme, with the Mail building being a MSCP to service it.

What that scheme would be I don't know. With AXA there offices would be the obvious choice but the council wouldn't want it to compete with Friargate. That leaves a potential area for apartments like those planned at BP ( if it doesn't revert to the original plan), but there isn't really a great deal of interest in them at the moment.

Time will tell, but I still expect the lot to be bunched together

[NewTroll]

Originally Posted by CovAD

I expect the whole area including the car park, the area where the shacks used to be and all around Lamb St to become one big scheme, with the Mail building being a MSCP to service it.

What that scheme would be I don't know. With AXA there offices would be the obvious choice but the council wouldn't want it to compete with Friargate. That leaves a potential area for apartments like those planned at BP ( if it doesn't revert to the original plan), but there isn't really a great deal of interest in them at the moment.

Time will tell, but I still expect the lot to be bunched together

It depends on who buys it, doesn't it? If investors are looking at large schemes in that area, it might get bought up - similar to the way Cannon Kirk bought up land around the station.

It might just get bought up for use "as is"... or get bought up and demolished and used for something else. Or just demolished to prevent it from attracting firebugs and squatters.

Given the death of Belgrade Plaza, I can't see anymore schemes like that in Coventry. I certainly can't see any large office developments or city centre housing developments.

The small office block at the bottom of Bishop Street has yet to start, and the site of the Radisson is now a fairground!

[NewTroll]

Originally Posted by We-Are-Borg-1987

A letter in yesterdays Cov Telegraph mentions a leaked gov. doc. that talks of a total of roughly 200,000 civil service jobs being taken out of London! I presume Cov has pretty cheap office rents, so I think when Friargate gets underway it may actually have some tenants in a few years!

Coventry's virtually reliant on the public sector as it is. We certainly don't need more public sector jobs. The lack of skilled jobs in hi-tech sectors is becoming pretty apparent - especially when Ericsson move out.

Cities only prosper & grow when they have enterprise - shifting large offices of civil servants to smaller provincial cities doesn't really help in the long term and is pretty unsustainable.

[We-Are-Borg-1987]

I agree, the city needs wealth-generating industries, not jobs reliant on the public purse. However, I think civil service re-location could help Cov, as its better than nothing. Labour govs seem to grow the public sector (to massage employment figures) to the detriment of the private sector. I am confident Prime Minister Cameron will improve things.

I think the Royal Mail site will be empty for years as the focus will be on Friargate and Jerde and schemes outside of those areas will struggle.

[LifeOnMarsBar]

Originally Posted by CovAD

Expect the Royal Mail building to become a MSCP - it's in exactly the kind of location the council wants them - next to the ring road and asily accessed from J1.

The surface car park will probably be built on as part of a larger scheme to regenrate the whol Bishops St area.

It won't be cheap to demolish - it was built to withstand IRA bombs. I suspect a refurb into an MSCP too. Whether people would use it or not will be another matter. Isn't there a great view of the spires from there?

[LifeOnMarsBar]

What do people think about Birmingham possibly getting 2 new stations for the fast link to London (under 45 mins)? A possible location for one of the stations is BHM International. Seems good for Coventry IMO if it was located there - better than if it was on the wrong side of BHM.

[NewTroll]

Originally Posted by LifeOnMarsBar

What do people think about Birmingham possibly getting 2 new stations for the fast link to London (under 45 mins)? A possible location for one of the stations is BHM International. Seems good for Coventry IMO if it was located there - better than if it was on the wrong side of BHM.

It's a bit pointless, as you can get from Cov -> London in just over an hour. A 15 minute train/car journey to International for a 45 minute journey makes it somewhat pointless. And no doubt it'll be horrendously expensive.

Not that it'll ever happen.

[LifeOnMarsBar]

Originally Posted by NewTroll

It's a bit pointless, as you can get from Cov -> London in just over an hour. A 15 minute train/car journey to International for a 45 minute journey makes it somewhat pointless. And no doubt it'll be horrendously expensive.

Not that it'll ever happen.

yep - take your point - but was thinking more in terms of Coventry taking advantage from any overspill, support businesses, employment

[NewTroll]

Originally Posted by LifeOnMarsBar

yep - take your point - but was thinking more in terms of Coventry taking advantage from any overspill, support businesses, employment

Not really sure in that case. It might provide some jobs, but I wonder if it'll just increase the "shadow" effect (Bradford is similarly affected due to its proximity to Leeds) that has been extremely detrimental to Coventry over the years.

[LifeOnMarsBar]

Originally Posted by NewTroll

Not really sure in that case. It might provide some jobs, but I wonder if it'll just increase the "shadow" effect (Bradford is similarly affected due to its proximity to Leeds) that has been extremely detrimental to Coventry over the years.

I think Coventry needs to be more clear in terms of it's identity, strategy & positioning. Either it should promote itself as a close neighbour of BHM and encourage closer links (business & political) or it should promote itself as a central hub for North Warwickshire (nuneaton, bedworth, hinkley. kenilworth, leamington) and demand/encouarge resources to cater for that. Either one has clear advantages and can be good for Cov but IMO i think Coventry is losing out whilst in this 'no-man' land.

[NewTroll]

Originally Posted by LifeOnMarsBar

I think Coventry needs to be more clear in terms of it's identity, strategy & positioning. Either it should promote itself as a close neighbour of BHM and encourage closer links (business & political) or it should promote itself as a central hub for North Warwickshire (nuneaton, bedworth, hinkley. kenilworth, leamington) and demand/encouarge resources to cater for that. Either one has clear advantages and can be good for Cov but IMO i think Coventry is losing out whilst in this 'no-man' land.

I agree totally. I remember reading the transport stategy for the "West Midlands" and Coventry wasn't included, but it was included in a separate document that detailed Coventry and Warwickshire, yet Warwickshire also had its own separate document!

The biggest difference over the last 30 years is that the reliance on component manufacturing from Brum for motor assembly has gone.

[stig1982]

"The Royal Mail building was purpose built and I can't therefore see any option other than for a future developer to demolish the building and redevelop"

That was a quote from a senior Council Office in the City Development Dept I heard about 12 months ago.

Don't forget also that the whole area around Bishop Street/Lamb Street/Silver Street/Cook Street is covered by the Jerde Masterplan (phase II). Given that the Jerde masterplan has been approved as supplementary planning guidance, and the Jerde plans earmark that whole area for a village style commercial/residential centre, I would be amazed if any plans now presented provide for just one huge car park on such a valuable piece of development land.

I say knock it down and start again with a mixed use scheme which is planned and designed