Part two of our review of 2023 moves into the second quarter and begins with the news that the Labour Party announced its choice for the 2024 West Midlands Mayoral Election in April.
Richard Parker, a former partner at financial services giant PwC, was selected as the candidate to go up against incumbent Andy Street when voters hit the polls in May.
Said to be a centrist party stalwart, Mr Parker spent 26 years at PwC in Birmingham and London and was also involved in the formation of the West Midlands Combined Authority and is also a treasurer with the West Midlands Forum. The mayor's remit includes key business matters such as public transport, investment in housing and skills.
A brace of business bodies set up under the Coalition Government to support investment and job creation in the West Midlands closed down.
Most of the services provided by Black Country and Coventry and Warwickshire local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) have since transferred over to the West Midlands Combined Authority.
The move came after the Government's announcement in the 2022 Levelling-Up White Paper that all 38 LEPs in England were to integrate into their local democratic institutions.
LEPs were created following the 2010 General Election, bringing together councils and businesses to determine local economic priorities and support growth.
A highly anticipated residential project in central Birmingham saw spades go into the ground in April.
After receiving consent during the covid-19 pandemic, diggers finally moved onto Ludgate Hill Car Park in the Jewellery Quarter to begin Moda Living's £302 million Great Charles Street scheme.
It will contain 722 apartments across a series of blocks ranging from six to 39 storeys, peering down on the city's famous A38 tunnels and Colmore business district. Other amenities will include a gym, concierge service, private dining rooms and sky lounges and the first apartments are due to be available in autumn 2025.
Construction work started just a few weeks US investor Harrison Street and its partners agreed a finance deal to back the development.
A city centre wine bar announced in May that it was closing after less than a year in business. Vinoteca, based on the ground floor of Two Chamberlain Square on the Paradise estate, opened just a week before the start of the 2022 Commonwealth Games and its Birmingham debut marked the company's first venture outside the capital.
But the owners announced they had struggled to run the business in the face of the post-pandemic working landscape, the economic challenges of the past 12 months and regular train strikes.
One of Birmingham's most-prominent redevelopment sites was back in the spotlight as developer Vita Group outlined its plan for a major project.
New apartments, offices and a thriving hub of independent traders, retailers and cafés are all set to be built at the vacant Axis Square plot next to the Mailbox complex.
Cheshire-based Vita acquired the four-acre site in April before detailing to BusinessLive its long-term plans to create a major mixed-use scheme - to be called 'Goods Station' as a nod to the land's historic use as a railway depot in the 1920s.
A very lofty and ambitious plan to bring together the worlds of academia and business was outlined by property group Bruntwood SciTech, Aston University and Birmingham City Council.
The trio is eyeing 49 acres of land around the university's campus and Brunwood's neighbouring Innovation Birmingham park to create what has been dubbed 'Birmingham Innovation Quarter'.
The long-term aim is to develop a range of properties covering commercial office space for the science and tech sectors, private and student residential and hospitality, teaching and research facilities. They will bring the business community together with entrepreneurs, start-up founders, academic staff and students.
Cricket lovers and Birmingham's tourism economy received a huge boost in June when it was announced that Edgbaston stadium would host a string of high-profile matches.
With estimates suggesting it could add £250 million to the city's economy, the news was perfectly timed, coming just days ahead of the start of the 2023 Ashes series at Edgbaston. Bosses at the famous stadium called it the "biggest-ever allocation of international cricket", spanning a six-year period to 2031 and including the 2027 Ashes and multiple tests with India.
And finally for part two, it was all go at one of the West Midlands' largest employers when online retail giant Amazon announced more details of changes to its operations here.
It had previously revealed plans to launch a new £500 million state-of-the-art fulfilment centre on the Peddimore estate, south east of Sutton Coldfield, but in June said this would result in the closure of its plant in Staffordshire.
The 12-year-old centre in Rugeley employed around 1,000 staff who were offered new roles at the Sutton Coldfield site. The retailer also confirmed this month that the new facility would be operational from October, with a long-term aim of moving from an initial 1,400 staff to 2,000 over the next three years.
