Nikal plans 1,000 Birmingham Eastside apartments for private rental

The Council granted outline permission in 2007 for proposals to construct a 71,000 square metre mixed-use development at the Masshouse site in central Birmingham, with up to 60,000 sq m of offices, 5,000 sq m of ground floor retail and up to 12,355 sq m of residential space or a 200-room hotel. The permission was amended in 2012, increasing the permitted residential use to 14,409 sq m, with the emphasis of the proposed development still on office space.

Nikal has since submitted a new application to vary the outline consent, seeking to increase the permitted residential floor space under the proposed scheme to up to 70,000 sq m. The developer said that the site is intended to be used for a 1,000-home high-rise residential development and that it proposes to retain the homes for private sector rental (PRS).

Nick Payne, managing director of Nikal, said in a statement: "We feel PRS is the way a lot of residential development will take place. We're working through the way we're going to fund it and are very optimistic we'll have funding in place to complete the scheme in its entirety, rather than in phases. And we believe that providing a critical mass of 1,000 units produces economies of scale and will allow us to control the environment and provide a really fabulous urban village."

"We'll hold on to the apartments and manage them to make sure they're well kept and well let as opposed to selling them on," said Payne. "We're looking to buy sites in other cities and we're exploring sites in Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield and Leeds where we would roll out the large campus model."