Fort Dunlop reopens after its transformation

Fort Dunlop, the giant former tyre factory beside the M6 in Erdington, has officially reopened as offices, shops and a hotel after a multi-million pound transformation.

The building was opened at a ceremony on 1 December, bringing new life to one of Birmingham's best known landmarks after it had stood empty for around 20 years.

A factory that made history

The Dunlop Rubber Company was set up in Birmingham in 1901 to make tyres, first for bicycles and later for cars. The First World War brought a huge increase in demand for tyres for lorries, and the company built the Fort Dunlop factory on a vast site in east Birmingham in 1916.

At its peak the site employed around 10,000 people, and for a time it was the largest factory in the world. The main building, designed in the 1920s, was used to store tyres and became a familiar sight to millions of drivers on the M6 after the motorway was built beside it.

By the 1970s, the rise of foreign car makers had hit demand for Dunlop's tyres, and large-scale production at Fort Dunlop ended in the 1980s. Dunlop still makes specialist tyres on a small part of the site, but the main building fell empty and was used mainly as a giant advertising hoarding.

A new life

The developer Urban Splash bought the building and nearly 10 acres of land from the government's regeneration agency, English Partnerships, in 1999. It has transformed the building with the help of the regional development agency, which funded the clean-up of the land.

Work began in December 2004. Windows and later additions were stripped out to leave the shell of the building, and a new structure of glass and steel was built inside. The building now has around 300,000 square feet of office space, along with shops and cafes.

A 100-bed Travelodge hotel, built in a new blue block alongside, opened earlier this year. The words "FORT DUNLOP" now stand in giant letters on top of the building, visible from the motorway.

The first tenants are moving in, including a number of shops that have relocated from elsewhere in the city. Urban Splash says it is confident of filling the building over the coming months.

Regeneration for east Birmingham

The reopening has been welcomed as a boost for Erdington and east Birmingham, which have suffered from the loss of manufacturing jobs over the last 30 years. The developers hope the building will attract businesses that might otherwise have gone to the city centre or out-of-town business parks.

Urban Splash, which is based in the North West, is known for turning old industrial buildings into homes and offices. It has worked on similar projects in Manchester and Liverpool, and Fort Dunlop is its biggest scheme in Birmingham.

The architects, shedkm, have kept the building's industrial character while bringing it up to date. The result is one of the most striking examples of industrial regeneration in the city.

For many local people, whose parents and grandparents worked at Dunlop, it is simply good to see the old factory busy again.