Birmingham council approves plans for city’s tallest tower

Birmingham City Council has approved plans for a 172m, 53-storey build-to-rent tower scheme, which is set to become the city’s tallest building.

The project team also claims that the £360m Curzon Wharf scheme will also be one of the world’s first net-zero-carbon skyscrapers, according to Construction News’ sister magazine Architects’ Journal, which first reported the planning approval.

The main 498-flat tower will be joined by three other buildings, standing at 41, 14 and 9 storeys, as part of the 92,300-square-metre development.

Under the proposals, which have been six years in the planning, the 41-storey tower will contain 732 student homes, while the 14-storey building will have 122 homes – down from the 265 co-living homes proposed when the plans were first revealed.

The separate nine-storey building will contain 12,000 square metres of office and life-science-research space.

The Curzon Wharf scheme will sit on a site by Dartmouth Circus, part of Birmingham’s ring road to the north of the city’s centre. The site is currently home to 1960s warehouses and is near the forthcoming HS2 Curzon Street Station.

Developer Woodbourne Group has consistently claimed the scheme will be “net-zero carbon”, previously stating that “science is now showing with alarming clarity how quickly we are running out of time to avoid catastrophic and irreversible changes to the world”.

Woodbourne Group chief executive Tani Dulay said: “We’ve worked hard to reach this point and it is incredibly satisfying to stand on the brink of delivering such a world-class development for a city I’m proud to call home.”

He added: “We need to help power the economic recovery by facilitating investment, creating jobs and acting as a catalyst to further success.”

When built, the 172m tower will be the tallest in Birmingham. The tallest is currently the 130m Beetham Tower, although the Octago  – currently under construction by Midgard for City Developments Limited – will be 155m tall.

A timescale for the construction of Curzon Wharf is not yet known.