PwC signs up as anchor tenant for Paradise redevelopment

The professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers has agreed to become one of the first tenants of the Paradise redevelopment in Birmingham city centre, in a significant vote of confidence for the scheme.

PwC will take office space on the top four and a half floors of One Chamberlain Square, one of the first two new office buildings in the development, on a 20-year lease. The firm expects to move in early in 2019.

The announcement came in the same month that the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board took a 50 per cent share in the £150 million first phase of the project.

Rebuilding the civic heart

Paradise covers about 17 acres of the city centre between Chamberlain Square and Centenary Square. The area has been part of Birmingham's civic centre since the nineteenth century, when it was home to the Town Hall, Mason Science College, the Birmingham and Midland Institute and the first Central Library.

Between 1960 and 1975, it was reshaped into Paradise Circus, an island in the middle of a roundabout on the Inner Ring Road. It became home to John Madin's Central Library and the School of Music, while the Queensway Tunnel runs underneath.

The name Paradise has a long history. A survey from 1553 records a field called Paradise Close on what was then the western edge of the town, and Paradise Street was laid out at the southern end of the site in the late eighteenth century. In 2014, it was announced that the new development would simply be known as Paradise.

The scheme

The whole of Paradise Circus was sold to Argent in 1999. A masterplan was drawn up by Glenn Howells Architects, and the planning application submitted in July 2012 was approved by the city council in December 2013.

The £500 million development is being funded through a joint venture between Birmingham City Council and the BT Pension Scheme, managed by Hermes Real Estate, with Argent acting as development manager. Enabling and infrastructure works are being paid for with £61 million approved by the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership.

Work on the first phase began on 5 January 2015. It includes a new road layout, new public spaces and two office buildings with 250,000 square feet of space between them. Two Chamberlain Square, next to the Town Hall, has been designed by Glenn Howells Architects, while One Chamberlain Square, which stands partly on the site of the old Central Library, has been designed by Eric Parry Architects. Carillion has been appointed as the contractor for the phase.

In the longer term, the development is expected to provide up to ten new buildings with space for shops, offices, leisure and cultural uses, along with a hotel.

Why it matters

Securing a major tenant this early is an important milestone for any development of this size. The PwC deal brings a large, well-known employer into the heart of the scheme, and the arrival of CPPIB as an investor gives the first phase significant financial backing as the demolition of the old library gets under way.