Fort Dunlop receives award
The large-scale Fort Dunlop building in Birmingham has received an award to recognise the successful redevelopment project.
The Birmingham Civic Society has awarded its 2010 Renaissance Award to the Fort Dunlop project in recognition of the restoration of the huge, listed building that had been neglected for over 20 years.
The iconic building has been redeveloped over several years in a joint venture between brown-field regeneration specialists Urban Splash and Advantage West Midlands, the local regional development agency (RDA).
Paul Lister, chair of the Civic Society’s planning committee, which makes the award, told the Birmingham Post: “The conversion of Fort Dunlop by Urban Splash represents a brave and imaginative transformation of this massive structure in a truly sustainable way”.
Whilst the design of the scheme has previously included many innovative energy saving measures, additional modifications have enabled the developers to further reduce the energy consumption at the scheme, giving an expected saving on fuel bills of some £200,000 pa.
A major Birmingham landmark, visible from the nearby M6 motorway, Fort Dunlop was constructed in the 1920’s and was once used as a warehouse by the Dunlop Rubber company. After being left unused for two decades the developers commenced a large-scale, mixed-use redevelopment project in 2004. Now, along with a 100 bedroom hotel and retail units the building offers over 300,000 sq ft of flexible office space. The redevelopment project, completed last year offers floor plates of approximately 33,300 sq ft on each of the six allocated office floors within the building.
The developers claim the scheme offers the biggest floor plates in the largest speculative office building outside of London. Lets are available from floor spaces of 2,000 sq ft upwards. Current rental prices are £15 / sq ft for the Grade A rated floor space. Current tenants include regional newspaper publishers, construction services, insurance companies and PR & design agencies.
Letting agents are GVA Grimley, DTZ and GBR.
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