Paradise Forum - Birmingham

By Alan Clawley.

If you want to know what will happen to the Central Library and all the other buildings on Paradise Circus after the new library is opened in 2013 you have to ask the City Council or Argent plc, the developer who is lined up for the job. You have to ask them because you won’t have heard anything from them unless you were at MIPIM, the annual property developers’  jamboree in Cannes earlier this year to hear Councillor Whitby boast about it to the assembled business tycoons.

Sir Adrian Boult Hall

To complicate matters its hard to know who is ultimately responsible for what is a very complex project that involves relocating not only the Central Library – one of the simpler parts of the jigsaw – but the Birmingham Conservatoire, the Copthorne Hotel, two office blocks and a dozen or more businesses including shops, restaurants and pubs.

On the political front Councillor Whitby likes to be portrayed as the supreme commander assisted by his lieutenant Councillor Mullaney  – who has taken on the task of finding a new home for the Conservatoire along with the excellent but under-appreciated concert hall named after the late Sir Adrian Boult. Councillor Mullaney told me recently that the Conservatoire is to be re-housed in Louisa Ryland House, the unremarkable Edwardian building in Newhall Street presently occupied by Social Services and Housing staff. The concert hall, which was purpose-designed like the rest of the Conservatoire is, according to the Councillor, to be rebuilt by the developer ‘in the new Paradise Forum development, facing onto Centenary Square – where Chamberlain House is now’.

Birmingham Central Library - artist's impression

My enquires to Mark Barrow, the City’s Strategic Director of Development, left me both puzzled and not much the wiser about the overall progress of the scheme. He informed me that the City were ‘working with Argent to develop exciting plans which will transform linkages between the City Core, the Board Street [sic] area and the Jewellery Quarter leading to a natural extension to the City Office core ‘in what we believe will be an award winning environment.’ But he couldn’t offer me any actual plans as yet.

In reply to my question about why the value of the scheme had fallen from the original £1 billion a few years ago to £500 million today he wrote that ‘For good masterplanning reasons ourselves and Argent have reconsidered the appropriate districts as development to attract the right sort of environment’. I have no idea what this means, but Barrow goes on to say that ‘Values fluctuate in the market and although this is long-term project Argent have revised these and will continue to do so. Any investment figure quoted will never be precise; indeed the true value will only be known when the scheme is completed.’

Barrow seems to be saying that nobody (even the developer) knows what the scheme will be worth when its finished. If this is true, Councillor Whitby should be told as he is hoping to borrow money on the strength of the future Business Rates generated by the scheme. How will he know what to borrow and whether he will be able to afford the loan repayments? This seems to throw into question the wisdom of using this new device, known as TAX INCREMENTAL FUNDING, to help a private developer raise the money to build the scheme.

I was also curious to know how much progress has been made on firming up the plans and agreeing a schedule of floor space since Argent last went public in February 2010, but Barrow was unable to help. He says ‘I am afraid I cannot supply a schedule of floorspaces at this time’, and on phasing of the development he says ‘the intention is to start on site in 2014, the development will be phased; however the precise nature of this phase has yet to be determined’.

So 10 years after the City first had the idea of redeveloping Paradise Circus we can watch a new library rising above Centenary Square but we seem no closer to knowing what we will get in Paradise Circus in return for the huge upheaval and the expenditure of large quantities of public money.