Colmore Gate is a landmark development in the heart of Birmingham. The existing building consists of 16 floors with two basement floors over a podium and tower section constructed in the mid-1990s.
We have been working with the design team to extend and refurbish the building to provide 23 floors of office accommodation in the tower and 9 floors in the podium section, totalling approx. 315,000ft2 NIA. As part of the refurbishment, the existing VAV air handling system will be removed and replaced with an air source heat pump system with on-floor heat recovery units to provide comfort cooling, heating, and ventilation. Additionally the building will benefit from a building and energy management systems, high-efficiency LED lighting and controls.
The project ethos revolves around a core carbon principle of retaining existing structure and foundations and working within that constraint to provide new and exciting office space.
As the Sustainability Consultant on the project we are targeting BREEAM Outstanding, WELL Core Platinum, ActiveScore Platinum and RESET certified to maximise the scheme’s sustainability credentials. We are also completing a whole life carbon and circular economy assessment to see that we are maximising re-use and aiming to identify further reductions in carbon where possible.
In addition the building is subject to the Design for Performance approach with the aim to achieve a 5 Star NABERS UK rating. The building is projected to deliver an ‘A’ EPC rating.
The building’s planning application was submitted to Birmingham City Council in August 2023, and we provided all the necessary supporting documentation, including the sustainability statement and energy strategy.
We are looking forward to our continued involvement in the project, pending positive planning feedback.
The building at 55 Colmore Row has been refurbished to offer 150,000ft² of high quality office accommodation, for which Watkins Payne supplied building services engineering, vertical transportation engineering, BREEAM duties and energy consultancy to achieve an BREEAM ‘Excellent’ and EPC B rating.
The refurbishment provides office space, along with the ground floor being granted A1 retail use. High-level exposed services were designed to give an industrial warehouse feel. The offices are heated and cooled by independent variable refrigerant flow (VRF) air source heat pump systems and illuminated by suspended linear LED fittings.
A wealth of experience in exposed services projects has enabled Watkins Payne to provide the highest level specification for the refurbishment of over 50,000ft² of office space at 101 New Cavendish Street in London.
Academy House was refurbished to provide 22,100ft² of high quality office accommodation. Watkins Payne supplied building services engineering which saw the 3rd to 6th floor including the ground floor reception of Academy House converted into open plan office areas and reception. This became the London headquarters for Sports Direct.
All MEP systems within One Hanover Street are being fully replaced, with new services distributed through the upgraded risers to each office floor. The refurbished building will benefit from high-efficiency heat-recovery systems, LED lighting throughout, intelligent lighting controls, a common network system and new fan-coil units among other modern building services upgrades.
