Radisson hotel opens in the new Holloway Circus tower

The first guests have checked in at the new Radisson hotel in the tower at 10 Holloway Circus, the tallest new building to rise in Birmingham city centre for a generation.

The hotel opened to the public on 16 January, taking up the lower 19 floors of the 39-storey tower. Work on the apartments above is still going on, and the upper floors are still being fitted out.

A new landmark on the skyline

At 122 metres, around 400 feet, the tower is now the tallest building in the city apart from the BT Tower. It stands at the top of Smallbrook Queensway and can be seen from miles away, marking the southern edge of the city centre.

The building was designed by the architect Ian Simpson and built by Laing O'Rourke for the developer Beetham Organisation. Its front face is floor-to-ceiling glass, broken up by vertical stripes that make the tower look taller and slimmer than it is.

The upper 20 floors hold 158 apartments, many of them already sold. Buyers have been promised some of the best views in Birmingham, looking out over the Mailbox, the canals and the Bullring.

Years in the making

The tower has been a long time coming. Plans were first revealed in 1998, when the city council ran a competition for a tower that would act as a gateway to the city centre and help regenerate the area around Holloway Circus.

Beetham's first design was a 44-storey tower with two spires on top, which would have reached 192 metres. It was scaled down after the Civil Aviation Authority tightened height limits following the attacks on the World Trade Center in September 2001. The spires were dropped, and a new design was drawn up.

The final plans were approved by the city council in April 2003, after the developer agreed to pay £1.8 million towards local improvements. The site was cleared of the old AEU Building, a 1950s office block designed by John Madin's practice.

Part of a changing city

The opening comes at a time of rapid change in the city centre. The new Bullring shopping centre opened in 2003, the Mailbox is now well established and thousands of people have moved into new flats in the centre over the last few years.

Supporters say the tower shows that Birmingham can attract serious investment and build landmark buildings that can stand alongside those in any other British city. Hotel bosses say the Radisson will bring more business visitors and tourists to the city centre, many of them coming for events at the NEC and the International Convention Centre.

Not everyone is a fan. Some residents have complained that the tower is out of scale with the buildings around it, and others have questioned whether the city needs so many new luxury flats. But few would deny that it has already changed the look of the city.

The apartments are expected to be finished and handed over to their owners later this year.