While the Bullring snares all the attention, the regeneration of Eastside will make the east of Birmingham as desirable as the west.

News 31st January 2003

Just a year since the launch of the Eastside Master Plan the dream is already turning into reality � further enhancing Birmingham�s reputation as a city that delivers on major projects.

The �6 billion, 180 hectare regeneration scheme to establish a new creative and learning district is a flagship project for Birmingham�s failed bid to become European Capital of Culture.

Progress on Eastside has accelerated in the past twelve months now that the notorious Sixties Ring Road has been reduced to rubble. This has opened up access to a vast area that will include a new city centre park and waterside mixed-use development.

Later this year, the completely re-built BullRing shopping centre will open for business. It includes a spectacular curvy Selfridges building, clad in 15,000 aluminium discs, and a new railway station.

Agreement has been reached on a key site, designed by Edward Cullinan Architects and including a 400 bed hotel. Building work on the 80,000 m� development is due to start in September. The fact that the hotel deal was reached after September 11, when the global tourism market was still in shock, is a sign of confidence in the Eastside development and the potential being created by the city�s renaissance.

Tenders for the City Park Gate development, launched at John Prescott�s Urban Summit last year, are to be returned this month (February 2003). As part of a creative procurement exercise, the bids will first be assessed for architectural and urban design merit as well as sustainability, before moving on the financial considerations in the second phase of tendering.

This approach has been welcomed by the MADE (the Midland Architecture and Environment centre) as added to Birmingham�s credentials for European Capital of Culture 2008. The centre�s director, as well as the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment are to take part in a regular Eastside Design Forum with developers of the new district.

The Richard Rogers Partnership, as concept planners for the new �130m Library of Birmingham within Eastside, are already working closely with Cullinan, master planners HOK and RTKL (Martineau Galleries) to make best use of local topography and give Eastside a new style. They have come up with the idea of creating the Birmingham Steps and cascading pools as a pedestrian link from the city centre. Eastside director Richard Green says the high level of voluntary collaboration between developers and their architects is something unique that shows the wider project is on track to meet the city�s very high aspirations.

Source BeinBirmingham2008 news room

A look Eastside
by Neil Woodhouse 
Images www.east-side.co.uk 

Eastside is 420 acres in size and, as its name suggests, sits on the eastern side of Birmingham City centre. In the long-term, it is hoped Eastside will do for the east of Birmingham City centre what Brindleyplace and the ICC did for the west. It is an exercise in changing the way the city is perceived, extending the centre eastwards through Digbeth and Deritend to the Middleway ring road.

It is averaged to cost at just over �1 Billion and has been stated by a number of people (from the USA) to be in the top three most important and exciting developments in the world. And its taking place in the heart of Britain's second city.......yup Birmingham!

Take a look

Here is the computer image of the area and what it is made up of. each area is a different subject. from top left hand corner- Pink = Moor Street Boulevard (City Park Gate Scheme), Dark Blue = Masshouse Circus, Dark Green = Learning Park, Light Green = Jennens Boulevard, Blue = Millennium Point, City Park, Yellow = Curzon Park, Pale Pink = Technology Park, Bright Pink = Canal City and finally Red = Curzon Gateway

When completed, the entire scheme will replace the entire suburb of Digbeth apart from 5 listed buildings. This will all be replaced with all the things you see above and is aimed to help specialist sectors in the city which are often over looked. It will expand Birmingham City Centre by nearly 20% which is a direct result of the demolition of the Masshouse Circus fly over!  Some of the schemes have already been approved at Masshouse but other proposals include the Birmingham Needle (Curzon Street Tower) Which will be approx 25 -30 floors tall and can be seen in the in the Red section of the picture above (Brums first sloping tower) however, other proposals include the Birmingham wheel (145m) and a number of smaller projects around the Canal City and Jennens Boulevard.

Here is a map showing the true size of the Development which will run both sides of the West Coast mainline improving dramatically the entrance to the city which at the moment is used by a cement works.

And here is an artists impression of what we can expect to see in as little as 10 years time when the scheme is due to be completed!

Masshouse &
Moor Street Boulevard
The vision for the development of Masshouse and Queensway Boulevard is based upon a distinctive city quarter for Birmingham: with a variety of overlapping activities to encourage activity and variety in the public spaces.

David McLean Developments' Masshouse will include homes, shops, bars and a hotel

Moor Street Boulevard

The aim is to create a dynamic mixed-use area that acts as a link and filters pedestrian movement from the city centre through to Millennium Point and Eastside.

The visual prominence and location of Millennium Point in close proximity to the centre makes the Masshouse area a natural gateway for visitors to this New Area of Birmingham.

The new �100 million Library of Birmingham will provide "a world-class library for local people" and form a key part of Eastside's Learning Quarter.

As one of Europe's most rapidly changing cities, Birmingham has the opportunity to offer the people of Birmingham a state of the art library to rank alongside recent achievements in other major cities throughout the world.

The library, which will be in the area between the refurbished Moor Street Station and Millennium Point; it will be across from Moor Street Queensway from Carrs Lane Church Centre near to Park St. Gardens. It will also overlook a new urban park in the Eastside area that will stretch eastwards from Curzon Street Station to the Digbeth Canal.

 More about the Library of Birmingham

The original estimate for the new building of �100 million does not allow for the cost of the contents. A �250 million price tag is now suggested to be put on the city's new Central Library more than double the original estimate.
The huge rise in cost for the flagship project in Birmingham's failed City of Culture bid puts its funding in question and its 2008 opening in doubt. >more

City Park

The new Park and plaza in Birmingham extending to over 9 acres will be created between Curzon St Station stretching eastwards to the Digbeth Canal.

Right in front of Millennium Point, it will become a visitor destination in its own right - the perfect place for families to picnic after a visit to Thinktank or the IMAX Cinema.
With the City Centre just a short walk away, it will also be a place for relaxation and a bit of peace and quiet, for shoppers, office workers or tourists.

The design concept for the new Park seeks to take the best features of modern parks in Europe. It would be strongly connected to the rest of the City Centre by tree lined boulevards, be predominantly green in character, provide opportunities for quiet relaxation and act as a catalyst for new private sector investment.

Until today, the centre of Birmingham has boasted very few green spaces.
The Park will not only be beautifully designed but will also become part of a wider network of paths, squares and tree-lined streets that will change the face of the City Centre forever.

Although most of you might of heard of the Eastside development, or if you didn't really know what it was or what it included that you now have a better idea of what it consists of and why it is being built. As many places such as Manchester has its Spinningfields development and Liverpool with its Forth Grace, Birmingham too has something in comparison and we hope this shows that regardless of what some people may think about Birmingham slipping behind these two great cities, we just want to show you that there is a lot of fight left in this city and the best is still to come. Birmingham will be a truly great city!

All of what we have mentioned can be seen at the Official Eastside website at http://www.east-side.co.uk/ along with constant updates of how the building work is progressing and news on the scheme