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Snowhill 3 | Snow Hill Queensway | Offices | 20fl | 90m | Comp.

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#1 ·
New Ballymore Phase 3 Unveiled

Ballymore has unveiled new images of the third phase of its £450m Snowhill development in Birmingham.

The Irish developer began revising proposals for the mothballed phase last year. It had planned to develop a residential and leisure scheme on the site but will now proceed with designs to create an office building of between 150,000 sq ft and 200,000 sq ft.

The £100m Siddell Gibson-designed scheme will feature floorplates of around 20,000 sq ft.

Talks are under way with potential funders for the scheme. Outline plans for the phase will be submitted in Q2, with completion scheduled for 2015.

http://www.egi.co.uk/Articles/Articl...vigationID=464

 
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#127 ·
It's ok but nothing more. Distinctly average design and very very stumpy. It just isn't tall enough to make that broad a front look good. At that wisth it really needs another 30-40m to make it look as tall as it is. I don't really see the point of the 3 or 4 pillars on Snow Hill itself either. I know they're supposed to pay homage to the other 2 towers but when they're not consistent through the design they just look a bit odd. Either keep the sheet glass look of the front or the pillars look all the way round. The corner closest to the 2nd Snow Hill tower could do with a bit of re-shaping as well. It looks in those pictures like it just stops abruptly, not matching the curves on the rest of the building.
 
#128 ·
What a depressingly underwhelming outcome for a site that has been trumpeted for many years as a major gateway location to the city centre that would be deserving of a building of significant height.

Same old storey (pun intended).
 
#129 ·
To be honest guys, this seems a lot more cleaner and neater than the last proposal, and the entrance is in a sensible place and that's much less messy now. Whilst it won't set the world alight.. I think this will work really well here... I just hope that a big corporation gets to put its name on the tower in a few years time.
 
#130 ·
Except that under 100m, and certainly not with those rather chunky proportions it really isn't a tower. If it were half the width then maybe but there's not really much towering about this unless you're right underneath it. I can imagine that even from just over the road it will be dominating but not towering...and that's what I really feel is missing here. Not every building should be, or needs to be, a signature building....but this one IMO does. And this isn't it at the moment.
 
#133 ·
It's only outline and I'll wait for more detailed renders before passing full comment, but at present I don't love it.

My main concern is that the view from Constitution Hill is far too wide and creates a wall. The tower proposals, whilst still acting as something of a barrier, were broken up with the break between them and the steps, and the height variation. Not only does it act as a visual barrier, it's also poor in terms of permeability north-south, something which should be encouraged if the JQ or Gun Quarter are to properly mesh with the city centre. There's a pedestrian route through the building onto Snow Hill Queensway, but that's open estate hours only.

Other negative points for me include:
-The public realm has been reduced at the back, and so much of that now sits under the building's overhang.
-The maximum height isn't an issue for me. The minimum is however, as I feel the stepped design of the overall site would be lost.


Movement on the site is of course most welcome, and should the materials be high quality I don't think it would necessarily be a bad buildings (based on rough indicative images), but I feel it could better relate to its surroundings.
 
#150 ·
I completely agree. The points about it being much more of a barrier than the previous proposals are what concern me most. A lot of the good that the previous proposal brought to the site has been wiped out by this new proposal - there's not really much to shout about with this project now.

There's no point in it having an attractive design when the form and massing is completely inappropriate for the site.
 
#137 ·
In the context of "what might have been" 2 or 3 years back, then yes, this current offering is distinctly average & underwhelming. But I guess that is one of the problems with original proposals of true skyscrapers adorning Birmingham skies.

We have had false dawns many times previously: The V building/Arena Central, Regal Tower, Beetham Tower et al. Some of these never saw the light of day, while others became reality but only after major concessions in height.

I grow tired of these wildly exaggerated proposals that raise our hopes that perhaps Birmingham will truly have a decent skyscraper to call its own. But all we get in the real world is compromise & averageness.

I think we're going to have to face reality and accept that the centre of Birmingham will only ever accommodate buildings of up to 150 meters at best. And as for this current proposal: on its own merits I guess it fits in well to a point, and is aesthetically pleasing. But it really doesn't offer anything in the way of originality; just another bookend to blandness I guess.
 
#139 ·
Funny, but as I was typing my response above, you were obviously echoing a lot (but not all) of my sentiments Sonny97!

I think what makes this so much more disappointing than some of the more 'fanciful' proposals we both cited above, is that IMO it was a stunningly elegant design but also a practical and deliverable one, it was conceived by a local architect's practice who knows the area intimately (Glenn Howells), IIRC the deal for the pre-let on the five star hotel in the shorter of the two towers was all but a done deal, the first two phases of Snowhill were also pre-let, and as we all know, the cores were going up.

It was just so tantalisingly close, and in fact DE51GNR's comment about the world economy was spot-on, because it seems the developer Ballymore suffered like a lot of Irish 'Celtic Tiger' companies by over reaching with it's ambitions that just weren't sustainable in the new world order...
 
#145 ·
I wonder what percentage of appartments they had to sell at HCT and still produce a profit? Most hotels can operate at a profit with averaging just 50% of rooms filled, I'm sure developers could "subsidise" development with appartments above, they will eventually get money back on the appartments once sold.

Thing is we've got a serious housing shortage, it may be that developers will have to start being more flexible offering 1/2/3 maybe even 4 bed appartments, thy prefer the 1 and 2 bed appartments as they generate bigger profits but we are now starting to produce more than there is demand

Give it 10 years we will back to building big with big proposals and big money ideas in my opinion.

Obviously this is a disappointment to what we did have proposed but its still a huge office in a prominent location in the business area and will help strengthen the area, the good thing I feel about this is its office space at 90m tall, fairly decent height in reality and still leaves a gap for a major hotel and appartments that was originally proposed but for elsewhere.

Think it could be worse if we had a scaled back proposal of a hotel and appartments as it would have just watered down the market further and meant the next proposal elsewhere didn't have as much demand to be big
 
#155 · (Edited)
I wonder what percentage of appartments they had to sell at HCT and still produce a profit? Most hotels can operate at a profit with averaging just 50% of rooms filled, I'm sure developers could "subsidise" development with appartments above, they will eventually get money back on the appartments once sold.
Well whatever it was, it wasn't enough and the same happened to Beetham in Liverpool & Manchester.

http://www.insidermedia.com/insider...de-miss-out-after-beetham-collapse/index.html

Unusual floorplate for office. I like it. Reminds me of Chanceryplace in Manchester which IMO is the best office building in the city http://www.chanceryplace.com/hello.html

I think the vertical feature facing the main road junction needs more thought but other than that, if they keep it simple and of high quaintly then it'll be fine.

 
#146 ·
I think there is a misconception on the level of profit that residential developers actually make. In a static market a developer will typically make between 15% and 20% on their investment. This is because there is a competitive market for land and developers bid against each other for sites. A developer that keeps 'a little something back' in their land bids will not win the site.

Where this might change is on high risk ventures, such as city centre apartments in the current market where any developer prepared to do such a scheme would expect a higher level of rewards to balance the risk, this assume no-one else is interested in the site (in reality the risks are just too high at present and no bank will lend even if a developer was brave enough).

In a falling market this will drop dramatically towards nil and beyond into large losses. I know of developers who have purchased high profile sites which are now worth less than 10% of what they paid for them.

In a rising market developers do make very handsome profits as sales values achieved exceed those that were assumed when the site was purchased.

Good while it lasts but as they say "what goes up...."
 
#148 ·
I totally agree with you Ecological. That, in my opinion, is another city centre site wasted. I don't necessarily want to see a dozen skyscrapers on the skyline, I just want to see one skyscraper in Birmingham before I die, or at least before I'm admitted to a care home when I'll be too gaga to appreciate it.
 
#151 ·
From EGI:

Ballymore drives ahead at Snowhill

Ballymore is looking to cash in on Birmingham's dearth of grade-A office space by moving forward with its partially stalled 1.2m sq ft Snowhill development.

The Irish developer has submitted a revised outline planning application for the third and final phase of development, which will house a 250,000 sq ft office tower on the 4-acre site next to Snow Hill station and fronting St Chad's Cathedral.

The Sidell Gibson-designed scheme will also include 56,000 sq ft of conference space, 13,000 sq ft of shops and restaurants and 180 parking spaces. The 15-storey building will be the tallest of the three Snowhill offices.

Original plans for the phase included two skyscrapers - a 44-storey residential tower with 332 flats and a five-star Westin Hotel & Spa. Work stopped on site in 2008.

Construction will not begin until a prelet has been secured, but subject to consent, work could start on site in 2014 with completion in 2016.

Project director Richard Probert said: "We see an opportunity to take advantage of a potential gap in the pipeline of such large floorplate schemes in the city centre between 2013 and 2018. The scheme will deliver an iconic new Grade A office building at this key gateway to Birmingham city centre, retaining some of the elements of the previous scheme constructed below the already-built podium."

The first phase of Snowhill was completed in 2009 and is being sold by Commerz Real for £124m - a 6.25% yield. The second 300,000 sq ft phase is due to complete in 2013 and includes a 250,000 sq ft prelet to law firm Wragge & Co.

Turley Associates advised on the outline planning application for the third phase.
 
#154 ·
and also, quite unusually, its an outline application. with regard to office buildings, this will most likely be due to the fact that large scale occupiers will often want something bespoke to their needs so will likely need to be adapted depending on who the future occupier is.

also, with thi in outline, it will also have to compete with the likes of paradise circus i woudl ahve thought....
 
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