Birmingham’s latest office development – the biggest built in the UK outside London since the start of the credit crunch – is to be opened up to the public for ten days.
The 310,000 sq ft 14-storey building will be completed in April 2013, when its developers, Hines and Ballymore, will lay out the welcome mat for visitors.
It is believed to be the first time in the city a commercial building of this size has been showcased in this way. To mark its launch, Hines and Ballymore have commissioned a performance installation by Birmingham-based theatre company, Stan’s Cafe. The show, which is free to attend, will be held on the sixth floor of the building.
Two Snowhill comprises 303,000 sq ft of office accommodation and 7,000 sq ft of ground floor retail space. 118,000 sq ft of office space remains available to let.
The delivery of a new office building has become a rarity in the regional cities post credit crunch, with development having come to a virtual standstill. With no sign of any new office construction on the horizon in Birmingham, it will be many years before the next new significant office building is delivered in the city.
Two Snowhill will be open to the public from Friday 12 – Sunday 21 April when it will host a special 10th Anniversary version of Stan’s Cafe’s award-winning performance installation ‘Of All The People In All The World’.
Anthony Leonard, director of Hines, said: “Traditionally, office buildings are off limits to anyone but their owners and tenants. At Two Snowhill we are delighted to be able to work with Stan’s Cafe to welcome the public into the building.”
Richard Probert, commercial sales and letting manager (UK) for Ballymore, said: “When One Snowhill was launched there was a huge amount of public interest. Two Snowhill is its big sister and one of the best specified buildings outside London. We are hugely proud of it and want to celebrate the latest addition to Birmingham’s skyline.”
‘Of All The People In All The World’ will be held on the 24,714 sq ft sixth floor of the building.
The show straddles the line between theatre and art; it uses grains of rice to represent people and through carefully measured piles of rice communicates human population statistics in a direct and powerful way. These statistics, including country and city populations, people being born and dying each day and commuters passing through Snow Hill Station, tell the daily, changing story of the planet’s population. Twenty three tonnes of rice – representing 1.5bn people – will be shipped into Two Snowhill for the event.
Since it was conceived in 2003, the show has toured the world to critical acclaim. Performances include a post 9/11 outing at the World Financial Centre in New York, at Washington DC’s Hall of Nations and the Melbourne International Arts Festival. It has showed in more than fifty cities, including Adelaide, Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Munich, Tokyo, Toronto and Zurich. More than 250,000 people around the world have seen the show.
James Yarker, founder and artistic director of Stan’s Cafe, conceived and directs the show. He said: “After a decade of touring the world with the show we are excited to be celebrating its anniversary in such a spectacular venue with amazing views over our home city. We hope to welcome people of all ages from all walks of life to this show, which is about us all and the world we share.”
The show’s opening times are 11am – 7pm weekdays and 11am – 6pm at weekends. In the meantime, there is a virtual tour of the building at http://www.twosnowhillbirmingham.com/movie/
CBRE and GBR Phoenix Beard are joint agents on the 118,000 sq ft of available office space.