55 Colmore Row

The project involved the restoration of a building one of Birmingham’s most iconic addresses – 55 Colmore Row. The team had to carefully work around the building's Grade II-listed Victorian terrace, whilst adding three additional floors that take in the spectacular views of St Philip’s Cathedral, delivering 160,000 square foot of flexible and contemporary Grade A office space.

Key Stats

A value engineering exercise at the bid stage of the project ensured a £2 million saving for the customer

Careful working around the existing listed facade and listed 19th Century banking hall

For protection, the building was wrapped in one of the largest scaffolding wraps in the UK

408,624 hours worked by the team

20% additional floor space created through extension and reconfiguration of existing space

At a Glance

Client

IM Properties

Budget

£28 million

Completion

January 2017

Location

Birmingham

Sector

Commercial

Our approach

The Morgan Sindall Construction team worked closely with building conservation officers throughout the process to ensure that the work done to bring the building up to 21st Century, Grade A office standards was still sympathetic to the Grade II-listed building.

The 19th Century banking hall was a particular area that was carefully considered. As part of 55 Colmore Row’s upgrade a state-of-the-art building management system was installed, which included a seven-storey glass scenic, buttonless lifts built to NASA tolerances, as well as people and car identification systems that learn user movements within the space, reducing waiting times and making the buildings systems much more efficient. All of this was installed without impacting the banking hall, with regular quality checks completed periodically to monitor not only the progress of the work but also impact to the existing space.

Whilst the existing structure was retained, 20% additional floor space was created with three new floors added to the roof to create a six-storey building as well as reconfiguring internal layouts to better accommodate open plan and flexible working spaces. This not only created office space, but space for two restaurants at street level, which benefited from views from a stunning full height glazed façade.

Image of the building wrap that was used to protect the existing grade two listed features — One of the largest building wraps in the UK was used to protect the grade II-listed Victorian façade

Find out more about the team who delivered this project

Central & West

To protect the building's Grade II-listed Victorian façade, the Morgan Sindall Construction team wrapped the entire building – one of the largest scaffold wraps in the UK.

After construction, the team carefully took down the wrap and donated it to charity, where it would be repurposed to make tents in African refugee camps.

Delivering complex projects isn’t just about the quality, cost and time elements, it’s also about the customer experience. The support which we got from the team at Morgan Sindall Construction was exceptional. What was excellent is they all knew their subject matter really well, but they also really cared about what they were delivering. That meant we had the utmost trust that the team could overcome all the projects complexities, and still deliver the fantastic project we have today. By communicating regularly and keeping us involved in decision making, we knew this project would be a success and we weren’t disappointed. It’s been a great project and it’s a fantastic building – our users are loving every minute of being part of 55 Colmore Row.

Daniel Butler, Project Manager, IM Properties