A Midland’s development company has rounded off a three-month, multi-million pound investment spree by acquiring a redundant Birmingham city centre office block.
Seven Capital has bought Britannia House — a 60,000sq ft office and retail property on Great Charles Street — from Constantine Land, the property arm of private investment company the Constantine Group. Both firms have refused to reveal the sale price.
The 1959-built block has remained empty for some time with its only occupant being a ground floor bar and restaurant. Planning permission, drawn up by Associated Architects, was granted in 2012 and would see the building re-clad, the entrance revamped and all the upper floors modernised as part of a £4m project.
Seven Capital, which has said it intends to rename and rebrand the property as 7 Newmarket Street, will only say that it is undecided about the site’s future. “It is an unloved office building which we are going to bring back to life,” commented managing director Phil Carlin. “There is existing consent for offices, but we are exploring our options at the moment.”
His company, which has publicly promised to deliver at least 5,000 new homes for Birmingham, has acquired three significant commercial properties this year alone.
Last month it bought One Hagley Road, a 1970s Edgbaston office block, with the intention of converting it to 270 apartments. Weeks before Seven Capital bought into the city’s Jewellery Quarter by taking control of the former Swam Kettle factory on Icknield Street and unveiling a mixed-use scheme anchored by 700 homes. And in March it clinched a deal to buy The Waterfront, a prominent Brierley Hill building which has stood empty for more than five years, and convert it to 181 luxury apartments.
“Britannia House is a rare opportunity to buy an empty freehold office building in the traditional Colmore business district,” Carlin added. “It is a prominent building, and they don’t come along too often.
“Most office buildings are occupied in the city core, and this building is primed and ready to go,” he said. “That is what we do, we buy off people who have fallen out of love with a property and then get in there and rejuvenate and regenerate.”
Improvements to nearby Snow Hill Station and its surrounding business quarter – including the Two Snowhill development – are an indication the developer may well choose to kept the 11-storey block as a commercial investment. “I see great prospects for this neighbourhood, especially on the back of things like the Snow Hill Station improvements,” admitted Carlin.
Another incentive to keep its latest acquisition commercial are Stirling Property Ventures’ recently unveiled plans to develop wasteland opposite known locally as the “bomb site” into a 500,000sq ft office and retail complex. Plans for that joint venture project with Birmingham City Council are expected to submitted later this summer.
