Almost 300 apartments and new offices could be developed in a major regeneration of one of Birmingham's best known city centre buildings.
Commercial Estates Group (CEG) is behind the plans to create new city apartments and modern offices in the curved complex which stretches the length of Smallbrook Queensway up to Bullring, known collectively as the 'SBQ' buildings.
The group wants to demolish the section running from Holloway Circus island to Hurst Street, including the bridge, and replace it with a tower of approximately 22 storeys containing around 280 flats.
The part from Hurst Street to near Debenhams would be stripped back and converted into around 161,500 sq ft of office accommodation, including an additional two floors and retail and leisure uses.
London-based CEG has just held a public consultation on the proposals, designed by Norr Architects, and is due to lodge its plans with Birmingham city council next month.
Development manager Iain MacSween said: "Smallbrook Queensway is located on the edge of the city centre core and is therefore ideally positioned to benefit from investment into comprehensive regeneration."
Comment: Architect and Post columnist Joe Holyoak on 'Birmingham's Regent Street'
Although none of the complex is listed, the application is likely to attract the attention of conservationists and fans of Birmingham's 1960s architecture, particularly as so much of John Madin's work has also been razed in recent years.
It was designed by James Roberts, the same man behind the former home of Odeon at Scala House - not part of these new proposals - and the city's famous Rotunda in New Street.
Architect and Post columnist Joe Holyoak is not a fan of the proposals, citing it as an "impressive piece of modern streetscape".
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Writing in the Birmingham Post, Mr Holyoak said: "Roberts' Queensway building is a grand and elegant urban gesture.
"Its curvature, rhythm of vertical fins, together with its characteristic projecting concrete uplighters, make it still the most impressive piece of modern streetscape in the city, even 54 years after its completion.
"It is directly comparable with the work of John Nash (who) cut the curving new boulevard of Regent Street through a tangle of lanes and alleys in London.
"The architecture of the proposal is bland and unexceptional, lacking the distinctiveness of the existing building.
"The developer claims the continuous sweep of Roberts' building is maintained in the new proposal but this is not so, as can clearly be seen in the published images."
CEG said feedback received during the public consultation supported the wider proposals and also the removal of the bridge near the Hippodrome theatre.
A redesign of the façade was welcomed, as were sustainable uses, regeneration and modernisation of the area, CEG added.
