Report - 103 Colmore Row - Westminster House - May 09

God · May 17, 2009

My Most favourite Place Yet

Visited with Inlovewithsound

I have put this in High Stuff because wait until you see the roof pics...

From Wiki:

103 Colmore Row (formerly known as National Westminster House) is a building on Colmore Row, Birmingham, England once owned by NatWest. It is now owned by the developer British Land who received planning permission in September 2008 to replace the tower with a 160 metres (525 ft) office skyscraper.

The current building is a 23 storey structure with entrances on Colmore Row and Newhall Street. Designed by John Madin, it is of the Brutalist style, contrasting the traditional Victorian architectural styles in the immediate area. Although, the pre-cast concrete panels on the exterior, which were common on commercial buildings of the time, rather than in-situ concrete do make the building differ from classic Brutalism.

In December 2006, British Land acquired the freehold of the tower from Omega Land for Â£25 million. They announced their intentions to demolish the tower and replace it with another office tower. This will be their first development outside of London.

British Land commissioned Hamilton Architects to design the tower and between October 9 and October 11, 2007, they hosted a public consultation in the banking hall of 103 Colmore Row to showcase their proposals. The proposal at the public consultation was 163 metres (534.8 ft) tall to the top of a light mast and consisted of 28 occupiable office floors and three plant levels. The tower would be the tallest building in the city, only surpassed by the proposed VTP200. It had a roof height of 137 metres (449 ft). GVA Grimley have been hired as planning consultants and the project will cost Â£160 million.

A monster explore over about 10 hours, most of the floors are quite similiar so just had a stroll round, and took a variety of pics. I was here for two things, the bank and the roof! I decided a while back to try and document the changes to Birmingham as there are loads of redevelopments going on and planned, this ties in very nicely with my self project. Hopefully you will enjoy the pictures as much as I did taking them.

The Photos

The Bank

1st Floor Balcony. Over looks the bank area.

The front part of the bank was boarded and turned into a display room for people to come and view the proposed plans for development.

The Safes

More Spacious than my House!! I think there were five safe rooms in total! One was still locked...

Nothing Safer than Safes in Safes!

Remnants of the Cash

Thick Safe Doors!

The Offices & Conference Rooms

The majority of the office space was the same and totally stripped out. Just a couple of photos to show, most floors consisted of the same layout, the top floors were different with some really nice conference rooms.

I believe these are the Directors Offices. The map has a sliding wooden panel over it that when covering the map reveals a hidden wardrobe in the side cupboard! Nice. Also a safe in the cupboard. There were two offices like this.

Plant Room

There was quite a few plant rooms. Snapped a few shots of one and had a wonder round the others.

The 20th Floor

The 20th Floor seemed to be some sort of living accomodation. Maybe for a caretaker? The bath took us by surprise and indeed the fridge in the bathroom. Handy for a beer in the bath I suppose! The rooms were totally stripped again and not worth a shot in my opinion. There was a big kitchen with goods lift down to the 18th or 19th floor kitchen.