Take a look at Birmingham's changing skyline as Paradise project gathers pace
The dramatic redevelopment of Birmingham city centre is picking up pace, as two new office buildings start to emerge.
Around 100 builders and sub-contracters are now working on the Paradise Circus project on any given day.
Wolverhampton-based Carillion has been working on the site since 2015, reorganising the surrounding road system and then starting work on One Chamberlain Square, which will become the city home of accounts PwC.
Later this year construction firm BAM will arrive to start building the neighbouring office block, Two Chamberlain Square.
It is reshaping the heart of the Second City, with work going on overlooked by the historic Council House, the Town Hall, the city's museum and art gallery and the new Library of Birmingham.
The company managing the £500 million Paradise redevelopment is Argent, and regional director Rob Groves said: "We've been on site since the beginning of 2015 but a lot of our time was spent on highways and demolition across the site.
"But we have now reached a really exciting stage – earlier this year we started on building things rather than removing or demolishing them. You can see the first building coming up out of the ground. We expect the 'topping out' (completion of the construction) by the autumn this year and PwC will be moving in by early 2019.
"People can now see it going up with anothjer floor every couple of weeks.
"And the foundation work for the second building has started. We are going to have even more cranes on the site this summer. People can look through the site now and start to see it taking shape."
Meanwhile plans are being drawn up for the second phase of work on the site.
The Paradise team is working up detailed designs ahead of submitting a planning application for One Centenary Way, providing 250,000 to 300,000 sq ft of office space and a 250 bedroom luxury hotel.
Mr Groves said: "We are aiming to have the detailed planning application submitted later this year. The whole project has entered an exciting phase. We are starting to see the development, and getting some idea of what the vista, the view of the city, will look like in the next few years.
"By autumn this year people will actually be able to walk across Centenary Square. And we have more demolition work to come, with the Birmingham City University moving out in the new few weeks into the new Conservatoire in Eastside."
The new £57 million home for Birmingham Conservatoire will be built alongside Millennium Point, adjacent to Jennens Road.
"We will then start demolition of the old Conservatoire some time later this year. So we have two buildings going up, and work preparing for the next phase of the Metro which will extend from New Street to the ICC and then eventually on to Fiveways.
"In just a couple of years this area is going to be transformed as the first phase of Paradise Circus is completed, with the Chamberlain Square buildings and the Metro, and then we will be in to phase two."
