City icon lives once more

Fort Dunlop, the former tyre warehouse, has been given a new lease of life with a hotel, retail and office premises

A quarter of a century after the doors closed on the eponymous tyre warehouse, Birmingham’s Fort Dunlop is once more open for business. The 90-year-old icon has been reinvented by the visionary developer, Urban Splash, as a high performance business park with soul.

Situated at a gateway city fringe location, the new Fort Dunlop brings together 350,000 sq ft of office, retail and leisure space along with a 100-bedroom hotel, all located under the UK’s largest green roof.

Big and bold reinvention
In breathing new life into the building, Fort Dunlop’s fantastic historic features have been retained and complemented, where appropriate, with the best in modern architecture. Award-winning architect shedkm worked closely with Urban Splash to design a building that stays loyal to its industrial heritage while introducing bold and big statements. The result? A new design icon for the city.

The ground floor is dedicated to places to eat, shop, drink and relax in, with the other floors adapted as unique office spaces. A new hotel in the form of a striking blue wedge, seemingly injected into the building, was completed in the spring of 2006 and is let to Travelodge.

Crowning all of this is a rooftop promenade and the UK’s largest green ‘sedum’ roof. It adds to the already impressive view and provides extra insulation and longevity to the life of the roof, as well as attracting the area’s wildlife to forage.

Bucking the retail trend
Having been successful in attracting independent retailers, the ground floor retail promenade has now been fully let or reserved, with more retail announcements in the pipeline.

Retailers include the stylish furniture store, Dwell; urban florists, The Flower Room; and Snap, the iconic rock and pop photographic gallery. The Hub will also offer mobile communication solutions to businesses from its ground floor unit.
Adding the food and drink ingredients are Duet, a stylish Indian and Italian restaurant; The Daily Grind coffee outlet; and a salad and smoothie bar. There’s even a convenience store, Select & Save, on-site, should office occupiers need to stock up their fridges.

Complementing all of this is the opening, this month (December), of a children’s activity centre, Funky Monkeys, which will include a day nursery in 2007.

Urban Splash's Director of Development (West Midlands), Nathan Cornish, was determined to give a new purpose to the building: “Fort Dunlop is unique. The ground floor is absolutely crucial in achieving a vibrant atmosphere so we’ve been busily hand-picking the right mix of retailers to offer all the things you would want as an office occupier.
“Fort Dunlop is the true 24-hour building. You can grab a morning coffee, lunch, an evening meal and even stay the night in the hotel.”

Fergus Mckinnon of joint agent, GVA Grimley, has been impressed by the way that Fort Dunlop has bucked the current retail trend: “The strength of the lettings is a clear indicator to us that there is strong confidence in the market in Fort Dunlop, as the retailers are clearly seeing its potential to attract thousands of office workers.”

Unique office offer
The combination of the largest floor plates outside the M25 and a flexible approach means that Fort Dunlop can offer space from 1,000 to 50,000 plus sq ft, making it ideal for small and large companies.

Joint agent, DTZ’s Matt Long, is unsurprised at the Fort Dunlop success story: “With rents from just £10 psf fitted and £6 psf shell it’s no shock that the demand for the office and retail space has been incredibly high. The combination of high specification offices, flexibility of lease and amazingly competitive rents makes the space sell itself. The second floor is now fully let, resulting in the third and fourth floors being brought to market ahead of schedule.”

Fittingly for a building whose reinvention has been design-led, the first tenant to sign on the dotted line was the UK’s fastest growing design consultancy, Boxer, and its sister company, The Marketing Store. Other tenants include national marketing agency Golley Slater, medical recruitment organisation Healthcare International, telecommunications firm Wavelink Communications, and overseas property business Palare Property Investments.

Dave Copeland is a director with civil and structural engineering company, Cox Turner Morse, which has taken a 6,672 sq ft office on Fort Dunlop’s second floor: “Like Fort Dunlop, Cox Turner Morse combines a proud heritage with a contemporary approach. Having outgrown our current base, we were looking for offices that reflected our fresh culture.

Fort Dunlop was the perfect postcode. We’re looking forward to operating from an iconic building at a gateway location.”

As commercial agency surveyor for Urban Splash, Emily Jones has been responsible for managing the lettings and the numerous associated daily viewings being requested by businesses: “Fort Dunlop is a truly unique building offering incredibly flexible space… . We’re asking businesses if they can afford not to look at Fort Dunlop.”

A new beacon
With its grand opening having taken place on 1 December, Fort Dunlop is expected to bring more than 2,500 jobs to its city fringe location. Beginning its new life, Fort Dunlop will provide a bright beacon, not only for the area, but also for the city and region.

About Urban Splash
Since Tom Bloxham MBE and Jonathan Falkingham founded Urban Splash in 1993, from a standing start and financed entirely through the re-investment of profits, the company has created over 3,000 new jobs, 1,000 new homes and half million sq ft of commercial space. Urban Splash has won 189 awards to date for its design-led approach.

Urban Splash is currently investing over £1bn in regeneration projects across the UK, including: Castlefield, Manchester; New Islington, the third Millennium Community at East Manchester; Altrincham, Cheshire; Ropewalks, Liverpool City Centre; Royal William Yard, Plymouth; Lister Mills, Bradford; and Morecambe's Midland Hotel.
In the West Midlands, Urban Splash is responsible for the development of the Rotunda – an iconic city centre building which will contain 232 already-sold apartments; and Waterfront, Walsall, where a planning application has just been submitted for a large scheme comprising seven buildings, including 144,000 sq ft of office space, 41,000 sq ft of retail/leisure space and 154 apartments.

Information on Fort Dunlop can be found at www.fortdunlop.com. Further details on Urban Splash can be found at www.urbansplash.co.uk. Lettings are managed by GVA Grimley on 0121 236 8236, DTZ Debenham Tie Leung on 0121 200 2050 and Urban Splash on 07000 70 40 40.