Second City Skyline Gets Second Chance

After years of apparently stalling in its commitment to building a skyscraping skyline, has Birmingham been handed a second chance?In 1998, the city of Birmingham publicly unveiled its ambition to become a skyscraper city. Naming itself as a "Mini-Manhattan" and launching prospects of 1,000ft skyscrapers, Birmingham was the place to be for developers with towering ambitions. However, the months following Sept 11th, skyscrapers were no longer the fashionable assets cities wanted. Birminghams high-rise ambitions were watered down and the final nail in the coffin came with the publication of "High Places", Birmingham's very own but very restrictive high-rise policy.This either resulted in the long delay in towering projects such as the 8 year old Arena Central Tower, the mass reduction in height of other buildings as was the case for Beethams Holloway Tower or all new towers built up to a strict height limit.It would appear however, that the fortunes of skyscrapers in the city are about to change if a number or press releases and public announcements are to be believed. If this is the case, the week of 24th June 2006 could be the date that Birmingham's towering ambitions are set back on track.Recent news reports that Birmingham city council were planning a shake up of the cities out-of-fashion high-rise policy was confirmed this week by Clive Dutton, director of planning and regeneration at Birmingham city council."We're reassessing our tall building policy in light of the interest in them in recent years. We're looking at where we want to cluster them and how tall is tall?" admits Dutton. The assessment comes as part of the wider 10 year master plan for the 2,000 acre city centre area inside the cities ring road. However, the cities stance on skyscrapers will not be known until autumn at the earliest although sources within the industry would suggest the city council will focus high-rise development around key city nodes, such as New Street Station, and Holloway and Lancaster Circus.However, even though Birmingham city council will be adapting their high-rise policy, wannabe skyscraper developers will still be limited by nation wide Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) height limits. With Birmingham city centre being located on a 110m sandstone ridge, and a national CAA height limit imposed at 242m, prospects of building higher than 130m would appear tricky at least, but not impossible.Speaking last week in the cities Rep Theatre, world renowned architect Eric Kuhne unveiled his vision for the land mark tower to be located at Arena Centre: Arena Square Tower. Having been recently contracted to draw up designs for the tower at Arena Central, Kulne spoke of a tower unlike that of any tower currently in the city, and the tallest tower outside the capital. On the face of it, many people may ask the question of how this is possible.The answer lies in the second major revelation this week which has the potential to restart the towering ambitions of Birmingham: the confirmation that Birmingham International Airport (BIA) on behalf of the CAA now withdraw any objections to Arena Squares height following discussions with owners Miller Developments and Bridgehouse Capital. A committee report issued this week goes on to state..."..having submitted an aerodrome safeguarding impact assessment ... the assessment has been considered by Birmingham International Airport, in conjunction with the Civil Aviation Authority. The airport have now written to confirm that the assessment demonstrates that a tower of up to 175m would be acceptable in aerodrome safeguarding ... They have therefore withdrawn their previous objection to the tower."Having taken such a route, BIA and the CAA have now created a precedent on how high Birmingham skyscrapers can be built. Towers such as Arena Square tower and Richardson Cordwells Broad Street Tower now stand the best chance of being built than they ever have in the past, and this in itself could trigger yet another boom in towering proposals in Birmingham.With a number of towers in the city either in planning or approved ranging from 80-175m in height, Birmingham is building itself the skyline it wants. BCC and BIA are sending out the most positive signals to skyscraper schemes to date. A very restrictive high-rise policy has been called in and reviewed, and the local airport has decided to withdraw its objection to the tallest tower proposal in the city.Will this move, however late it may be, may attract other developers wishing to build big in the city or are things as good as they are going to get with Birmingham's high-rise vision? One thing is for sure however, Birmingham's skyline is changing.