Birmingham’s Broad Street has seen an influx of high-rise developments in recent years – and it could soon have another joining the city’s skyline. Developer Regal Property is eyeing a PLOT AT 90-97 Broad Street to house a £150 million 47-storey residential tower with 526 apartments to rent, to be called ‘The Essington’.

The site, currently occupied by low-rise office buildings, is the merest of stone’s throws away from The Bank, Regal’s two-phase apartment project which completed shortly before the onset of the pandemic.

Alongside the apartments, the newly unveiled designs include co-working space, a cinema room, gym and yoga studio, cycle storage and one of the city’s highest private dining rooms on the building’s top floor.

There would also be a pocket park on the ground floor for residents at the development which is designed around an H-shaped floor plan. If successful, The Essington would become the latest in a string of tall towers to be built or proposed for a street which for decades was known for its raucous nightlife and not a lot else.

Regal completed The Bank in 2020, comprising two towers of 22 and 33 storeys respectively and containing 406 apartments, while last year Moda Living opened the 42 storey, 481 unit The Mercian directly opposite.

Further west, US developer Cortland recently topped out its 35-storey block with 440 apartments at the corner with Ryland Street and earlier this month new proposals were unveiled for a 32-storey, 294-unit residential tower at 100 Broad Street at the same junction.

Regal’s development director Mark Holbeche: “The city is hugely undersupplied with really good quality, well-managed and looked-after build-to-rent accommodation.

The Mercian has been hugely successful and has shown there is a demand and appetite for high-quality build-to-rent apartments. I was told by a valuer that for every apartment that’s available in Birmingham there are 15 tenants looking to move in.”

He added: “Broad Street is an area that has been designated for tall buildings so it’s a very appropriate location, especially with all the changes that have been going on in the Westside district over the last ten to 15 years such as Paradise, Arena Central and in particular the new metro stop.

Having done our homework, we believe the city is still hugely undersupplied, we like to do something a little bit different and we like building tall buildings.”

Existing buildings on the application site would be demolished to make way for the new development.

Plans have been submitted to Birmingham City Council and Mr Holbeche said he hoped to secure consent by the end of this year, with a view to starting construction in the first half of 2024 and completing in late 2027. Jewellery Quarter practice Glancy Nicholls Architects has designed The Essington.

Director Adam McPartland said: “Designed to physically open out onto the street below, the concept for this building started with place-making within the urban realm, with thoughts around lively amenity space spilling out onto an urban pocket park adjacent to the metro stop.

This pocket park is a key part of The Essington experience offering pause to Broad Street’s bustle, much-needed habitat and sustainable drainage opportunities and forging the key access point for a new connection from Broad Street into Ladywood.”