Moda Living and Apache Capital have acquired the Great Charles Street special purpose vehicle to develop Birmingham’s long-stalled “bomb site”.
The build-to-rent duo has purchased the SPV which holds the development agreement and will work with freeholder Birmingham City Council to develop the site into a high-density residential development which would have an end value north of £200m.
Moda Living is currently in pre-application discussions with the council, after more than a year of negotiations to take over the site.
It is expected to submit a planning application in the coming weeks, with current plans proposing 700-800 flats, with a mix of studio, one, two and three-bedroom apartments in towers of up to 30 storeys.
Sterling Property Ventures will remain an adviser on the development but will now take a backseat after acquiring interest in the site in 2013 and trialling various strategies on the long-awaited development.
Sterling will focus on developing Birmingham’s tallest office at 103 Colmore Row, while Moda takes the lead at Great Charles Square.
‘Political hot potato’
The two-acre Great Charles Square has been nicknamed “the bomb site” due to its poor state, with the area still only holding a car park.
One residential developer described it as a “political hot potato”, with various stakeholders, including the Jewellery Quarter District Trust, Historic England and the council, debating several designs over the years that have yet to translate into a planning application.
The site is located in an area between the city’s office core and the residential Jewellery Quarter. It is surrounded by conversation areas, where buildings are restricted to a height of just four storeys, but as part of the city fringe it has no restriction on height.
Great Charles Square is bound by Great Charles Street, Ludgate Hill, Lionel Street and Livery Street. It fronts Snow Hill Station, which is due to be developed into a major transport hub with the arrival of HS2 in 2026.
The site has been divided from the city centre by the Queensway “concrete collar” ring road built in the 1960s and 1970s but has been identified as a key area for development to connect the different parts of the city.
It is a central fixture within the Snow Hill Masterplan, developed by the council and Colmore Business District, which seeks to deliver 4,000 homes and more than 2m sq ft of office space as an expansion of the office core, alongside a new boulevard (pictured) of amenities with public space.
Sterling efforts
Birmingham-based Sterling initially planned a 500,000 sq ft office development with additional retail and a large car park.
In 2015, Long Harbour agreed to forward-fund £55m for scheme comprising 350 apartments and 20,000 sq ft of ground-floor retail and leisure space. Sterling continued to seek backing for a 250,000 sq ft office development on the site, estimated to be around £100m in value.
The scheme was set to be Birmingham’s first institutionally backed PRS scheme. However, the deal with Long Harbour fell through as it was deemed to be unviable.
The following year, Sterling opted to drop the office portion, instead proposing a £150m resi-led development with 432 build-to-rent apartments, 146 serviced apartments and a 126-bedroom hotel set around a new public square.
This later progressed to proposals of a 650-apartment build-to-rent scheme centred around a semi private and public square.
Birmingham City Council is warming to higher-density resi schemes, with proposals of up 60 storeys in pre-application discussions, and Moda taking the reins in its second build-to-rent scheme in the city.
Moda and strategic funding partner Apache Capital have secured a £2bn development pipeline of more than 6,000 build-to-rent homes around the UK.
In April, the duo brought on Goldman Sachs with a £118m debt facility backing the construction of their first Birmingham scheme, the Mercian at Broad Street. The 42-storey scheme will deliver 481 rental flats as it the tallest development to be approved by the council.
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