Birmingham - The Giant Awakens
With Adam Morgan, Director at leading Architects Studio RBA.
Whisper it quietly, but recent years have seen a narrative develop which challenged Birmingham’s status in the UK’s pantheon of regional powerhouses. Manchester, they said, was stealing its crown as the nation’s second city. Having asserted its position as the capital of the north, it was now coming after Birmingham. After all, Manchester is big enough to make a challenge and far enough away from London’s orbit to attract investment. ‘North shoring’, went the argument, would catapult Manchester to second place and keep it there. It’s a compelling argument, but it’s wrong.
Adam Morgan, Director at Studio RBA
Birmingham’s scale, its average earnings, the size of its hinterland and the advantages of its connectivity to London have helped the city hold its own. A burgeoning and innovative tech scene. A rampant property market and its success in establishing itself as a credible counterpoint to London’s dominance in financial services. As well as the boom in Birmingham’s traditional manufacturing sector means the city is thriving.
The announcement by global banking giant Goldman Sachs that it is to bring hundreds of jobs to Birmingham illuminates the city's appeal. The skilled workforce, thriving office market and prodigious lettings to BT, Barclays and KPMG make it an attractive option.
According to the UK Powerhouse Report by Irwin Mitchell and the Centre for Economics and Business Research. Birmingham will be one of the cities to recover quickest from Brexit and COVID. And with the 2022 Commonwealth Games on the horizon, there’s the tail end of a £778 million government grant for staging the event to get through, not to mention the short-term boost to the city’s thriving visitor economy.
Similarly, Birmingham’s residential property sector is flourishing. Comparison website GetAgent recently revealed that Birmingham is the most valuable property market outside London. With inner suburbs such as Edgbaston and Harborne offering a cosmopolitan lifestyle that appeals to London’s high earners. If you're used to the finer things in life, you won't be disappointed. The city is home to the most Michelin-starred restaurants outside of the capital, grand museums and world-class arts.
The troublesome history of post-war planning errors in Birmingham has been well documented, the scars of which can still be seen today. Steps were made to redress the concrete brutalism aesthetic previous attempts at regeneration left behind. As an architect, I'd advise the city's developers and planners to remain focused on quality and design excellence. True, top tier anything is costly, but rising values in the city have boosted viability and increased market confidence creating an appetite to spend.
Birmingham City Council Leader Cllr Ian Ward agrees that quality and sustainability must be the city’s watchwords.
Cllr Ian Ward, Head of Birmingham City Council
“In recent years, Birmingham’s skyline has had some impressive additions including the Library of Birmingham, the redeveloped Birmingham New Street Station and Grand Central shopping centre, and of course the Bullring. Not only are these buildings architecturally impressive, something that Birmingham City Council values highly, but they also fit in with the council’s aims to ensure that new buildings in the city are sustainable”.
Regenerative mega-schemes, such as those around Curzon Street station and Digbeth, telegraph a statement to the market that Birmingham aspires to match other second cities, be they Lyon, Barcelona, Milan or Frankfurt. There remain some obstacles, notably in retail, which could potentially disincentivise companies looking to relocate. The quality is there, but it’s not concentrated in a single large area or neighbourhood where wealthier shoppers could while away an entire day in a monied cocoon. Think Passeig de Gracia and the wider Eixample in Barcelona, and you'll get the idea. These issues are being rectified as Birmingham's economy continues to grow and diversify. The city is attracting more higher-value tech and finance jobs, and a focus on underpinning apprenticeships is further driving Birmingham's vast manufacturing output.
Now for the unglamorous end of the property spectrum, industrial and logistics space. That, too, is thriving, and with players like St Modwen based in the Midlands, there is no shortage of firepower and expertise to help reinvigorate the city’s stock of industrial assets. Pleasingly, that is continuing the process of freeing up a myriad of attractive brick-built Victorian buildings for conversion to residential, office, and leisure space. The Jewellery Quarter started the trend that is now evident across the city as a whole, and believe me when I tell you that branch of the regeneration game has legs.
Clever branding and sensitive refurbishment play a key role in supporting and encouraging the new breed of entrepreneurs that are vital to all urban economies. We’ve seen it in our work in Liverpool’s buoyant Baltic tech district and in Manchester’s Northern Quarter, where whole ecosystems have sprung up around keynote refurbishments that provide low-cost space for start-ups. In the case of the Baltic Triangle, we’ve watched the neighbourhood’s economy crunch through the gears, and prices have continuously risen as second and third-stage growth companies have competed for space. Quality has improved, as have the salaries of the people working there.
Cllr Ward, who agrees neighbourhood-led regeneration in Birmingham is a priority, said, “With every major development in the city, we will seek to meet the full spectrum of people’s needs within their neighbourhoods. Delivering essential amenities, culture, green space, shops, flexible workspaces and affordable homes within an attractive and walkable environment. I want Birmingham to attract the very best developers who will value each of these priorities and help us to build a sustainable city for the future”.
Ward's sentiments are what all the best cities not only seek but achieve. The city is on a steep growth curve that is repositioning it in the popular imagination of investors and developers alike. Birmingham remains the country’s second city, and any chatter that it has or will slip from its perch is more hope than reality. As the good burghers of that other great second city, Lyon said, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
For more information contact Studio RBA here.