77000 ft2
office fit out
Mailbox, Birmingham
For the UK’s second largest mixed-use development, the Mailbox in central Birmingham, we provided Project Management, Employer’s Agent, Tenant Liaison and Principal Designer services.
The work saw the retail mall at the Mailbox enclosed and sky-lit to create an urban room with new façades finishes and store frontages, including the construction of a new roof and the fit out of 77,000 ft² of office space across two floors.
The vast site comprises 1.5 million ft² of office, retail, restaurant, residential and hotel space, with the redevelopment aimed at enhancing the public realm and bringing new business to the area.
Key details
Project name
Mailbox
Client
Brockton Capital LLP & Milligan Development
Location
Birmingham
Services provided
- Project Management
- Employer's Agent
- Tenant Liaison
- Principal Designer
Challenge
Juggling multiple stakeholders, we were responsible for ensuring that the project remained on programme and within budget, mitigating any resident issues and allowing their businesses to remain in full operation.
Works were carried out around very constrained delivery and waste management time slots to interface around main retailers’ restaurant deliveries and as a result, de-risking the project during pre-procurement and the procurement and construction programme itself proved challenging.
One of the tenants was the BBC, which presented us with the added complication of conducting a strip out and fit out above their broadcasting, recording and training studios.
Part of the strip out on Level 7 involved the removal of a major steel mezzanine from an enclosed building whilst the fit out was ongoing.
Solution
We established a high-level of contact and a good relationship with the contractor, arranging for the contractor to work by night shifts to avoid flow of people in the day when replacing main façade curtain walling. Regular forecasting meetings were also essential and were held with the contractor and operational teams to aid the multifaceted phasing, sequencing and tenant liaison.
Complex temporary wayfinding helped us maintain a high quality operational mixed-use environment with over 200 residents as well as the ability to open up key interface locations within the existing structure.
To minimise disruption to the BBC’s recording and broadcasting schedules, great care was taken with noise mitigation transference and construction times were carefully scheduled. Light alerts were implemented to indicate start/restart work whilst live news broadcasts occurred.
The heavy steel mezzanine on Level 7 was extracted using plasma cutting techniques with forced ventilation in order to move materials in manageable sizes by hand. The steels were temporarily supported and the plasma was cut into short lengths and removed via the goods lift to the exit route from the building, forcing the implementation of temporary ventilation to deal with plasma cut fumes.
Project statistics
200
residents occupying site
1.5 millionft²
mixed-use site
38
retail units
