Substantial funding has been given to the restoration of the Grand by local investment organisations. This will enable the hotel refurbishment to proceed following the nearing completion of the restoration of the external facades in Colmore Row and Church Street.Birmingham City Council and the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership (GBSLEP) are to provide a conditional £6 million grant to allow the scheme to move forward immediately. £4 million of this is repayable should the hotel be a commercial success.

Horton’s Estate, the owners of the scheme, has already invested a substantial amount to restore the external facades and fit a new roof.

And what a superb job has been done! See Gallery below.

Tony Green, chief executive of Hortons’ Estate, told me yesterday:

“It is good news and will enable us to proceed with confidence to the hotel refurbishment stage.

We are to start work immediately on the next phase of work, to construct the new build, terrace, plant rooms etc. at a cost of around £5million. These works will be complete in 12 months’ time.

We are now embarking on the final stage of confirming an operator and finalising designs etc. and hope to start the hotel work as soon as the next phase is complete. We estimate that this will cost £25 million and take at least 18 months to complete, meaning that the hotel would open in 2018. Despite this good news there are still many challenges ahead, restoring the Grosvenor Room for example, so we are not patting ourselves on the back yet!

With regards to the shops they are running slightly behind programme and completion is now scheduled for 1st February, although you should be able to see some of the shop fronts behind the hoardings towards the end of next week. The offices are further advanced and will be complete by Christmas,

The Barrick Street façade is progressing well and we have begun to remove the scaffolding from it, again this should be complete by Christmas.”

Below is a gallery of photos I took today.

View previous article on this subject.

Article by Geoff Caine

Gallery

Viewing Instructions:
1. View a larger version of a single image in a separate page – Right Click on the image then Left Click on “Open link in new tab” or “Open link in new window”.
Or…
2. Display an enlarged gallery – Left Click on an image – use the large side arrows to move between images – Left Click outside an image or press ESC to close the enlarged gallery.