NatWest Tower demolition: Last farewell to a Birmingham eyesore
Work has started to demolish Birmingham's NatWest Tower, to make way for what will be the city's tallest office block.
Redevelopment partners Rockspring and Sterling won approval in August to demolish the 22-storey eyesore tower, which dates back to the 1970s and has been empty for more than a decade.
It will be replaced by a new 26-storey landmark building which is expected to be completed in 2019.
Demolition of the former NatWest banking hall on Colmore Row follows a four-month strip-out of the tower's interior.
The developers say part of the banking hall's façade is being retained temporarily, to create a noise and dust buffer along Colmore Row. The removal of the banking hall itself will create a working zone on site for contractors to store the demolished material before it is transported off the site.
More than 19 miles of scaffolding has been erected so far to enable the work to be carried out – enough to stretch from Colmore Row to Cannock.
Materials salvaged from the 1970s building, including timber, metal and concrete, will be processed and removed to a recycling plant. Around 94 per cent of the total waste will be recycled.
The ornate aluminium doors of the banking hall, commissioned from late artist and sculptor Henry Haig, have been kept for use in the new building. The bronze coloured double doors boast an abstract triangle design, based on the NatWest logo.
Peter Graham, construction director at Sterling, said: "We are working on a very constrained site in the centre of a busy business district. The removal of the four-storey podium fronting Colmore Row will create space for the contractors, without the need to impinge on public space around the site."
Phase two of the demolition programme – dismantling the concrete tower floor by floor – will will start shortly and is expected to take around 11 months.
The NatWest Tower will be replaced by a £60million 26-storey landmark building, 103 Colmore Row. At 346 ft high and with its apex to stand more than 800ft above sea level, the new tower will be the tallest office building under construction in the UK outside London. It will comprise 211,000 sq ft of top grade office space over 19 floors.
At street level, plans include a winter garden and a café facing Colmore Row. At the top of the building there is provision for an 8,600 sq ft restaurant with a 3,250 sq ft 'lantern' space offering 360-degree views of the city.
Eric Linden, European director at Rockspring, said: "The NatWest Tower has been unoccupied since 2003 and the site has had a number of false dawns over the past decade. Having bought the building at the end of 2014, we are pleased to finally press the 'start' button on this project and pave the way for a new signature building for Birmingham."
