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Leicester based firm The Developments Factory , whose sales and marketing arm have been served with a winding up order by property firm Frank Knight, insist that it will not hamper their plans to transform Birmingham’s Central Hall into flats, offices and shops.

The iconic Central Hall in Birmingham, located on Corporation Street near Aston University and the O2 Academy, is a imposing terracotta and red brick building that was originally built in 1903 and used as a meeting place for Methodists. In recent years however the building has been best know for housing the Que club.

While the redevelopment project appears to be making little progress at present, comments from local residents and business owners recorded in the Birmingham Post indicated that they would be keen to see progress. With scaffolding having apparently blanketed the building for up to 4 years one local business man was quoted as saying “It just covers up such a wonderful building – it looks just a mess really”

With the commercial property market showing signs of recovery in the last few months and a growing pressure on supply levels, particularly in the office market, the time for progress on this project may be drawing near.

As a building considered an architectural gem, and registered as a grade 2 listed building, the stagnant nature of the development has drawn a wave of criticism in the last 12 months, with the presence of a large advertising banner bringing allegations that the owners had ceased work in favour of collecting revenue from such advertisements. But with the downturn witnessed in the commercial property market it is perhaps unsurprising that the project may have been temporarily mothballed until the market recovered.

Published by Simon on Wednesday, 03 March 2010 at 11:09 AM