Hammerson has submitted plans to transform the former John Lewis department store at Grand Central, Birmingham, into 200,000 sq ft of offices.
The company said the development, designed by Ken Shuttleworth’s Make Architects and christened Drum, will extend the former department store’s atrium through all four floors of the building to include a communal entrance that widens as it rises. It will also feature a rooftop garden lounge, with green walls on each level.
Under Hammerson’s proposals, the 40,000 sq ft ground floor space will be repurposed to complement the existing food and hospitality hub in Grand Central, adding a combined hospitality space with restaurant, bar and food market.
Space will also be created in the building for a premium grocery offer, gym, wellbeing amenities, flexible events space and ‘end of trip’ facilities for cyclists.
Ken Shuttleworth, founding partner at Make Architects, said: “We’ve been creatively considering how we rethink big box retail within city centres, to ensure we can enliven these key spaces and draw people back into the workplace by prioritising wellbeing and dynamism. We’ve applied this here so the design for Drum goes beyond a traditional workspace in every sense.”
Hammerson is targeting BREEAM Excellent, an EPC A rating, WELL Gold and WiredScore Platinum at the Drum, and said that refurbishing rather than knocking down and constructing a new building will save approximately 14,000 tonnes of CO2.
Subject to achieving planning, work on the transformation will begin in late 2023, with completion potentially as early as 2025.
Cushman & Wakefield is representing Hammerson on office lettings and Bruce Gillingham Pollard is responsible for hospitality and leisure lettings within Drum.
