130 Colmore Row

130 Colmore Row is a Grade II listed building in the city centre of Birmingham, England. The building was built in 1903 as the main office for Alliance Assurance by architecture firm Goddard & Co. of Leicester. The building served as an office and banking hall for Alliance Assurance until the 1990s when it was bought by Birmingham City Council and became a tourist information office and later a careers centre. In 2013 the building was sold to a Chinese Investment Consortium who have planned to turn the vacant building into a restaurant named 'Nosh and Quaff'

Nosh & Quaff

The restaurant Nosh and Quaff opened in July 2015 after a £1 million internal fit out by Keane Design Associates. The restaurant is run by Aktar Islam's Lasan Group and specialises in lobster and beer.

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122-124 Colmore Row

122-124 Colmore Row is a Grade I listed building on Colmore Row in Birmingham, England. Built as the Eagle Insurance Offices it was later occupied by Orion Insurance and was Hudson's Coffee House until late 2011, It is currently Java Lounge Coffee House (as of July 2015).

Completed in 1900, it was designed in an Arts and Crafts style by William Lethaby and Joseph Lancaster Ball. Pevsner's The Buildings of England: Warwickshire describes it as "one of the most original buildings of its date in England" and Foster's Birmingham (Pevsner Architectural Guides) as "one of the most important monuments of the Arts and Crafts Free Style in the country".

Evenacre acquired the building in 2011 and undertook a £500,000 renovation of the building including restoration of the stone façade and interior works including a feature reception. In October 2014 CBRE started marketing the vacant building to potential tenants.

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103 Colmore Row

103 Colmore Row formerly known as National Westminster House is a building on Colmore Row, Birmingham, England. The building was designed by John Madin and was completed in October 1975 as offices and a banking hall for National Westminster Bank. After National Westminster Bank vacated the building it passed through several ownerships but failed to lease its offices. In 2008 a plan by then owners British Land to demolish the tower and replace with a taller modern equivalent was approved. This plan never progressed and the building is now owned by the developer Sterling Property Ventures who successfully applied to have the building demolished and a new tower constructed in 2015. Demolition began in July 2015 with construction of the new tower programmed for Spring 2016.

Current building

The current building is a 23-storey structure with entrances on Colmore Row and Newhall Street. Designed by John Madin, it is of the Brutalist style, contrasting the traditional Victorian architectural styles in the immediate area. Although, the pre-cast concrete panels on the exterior, which were common on commercial buildings of the time, rather than in-situ concrete do make the building differ from classic Brutalism.

Colmore Row

Colmore Row is a street in the centre of Birmingham, England, running from Victoria Square to just beyond Snow Hill station. It is traditionally the city's most prestigious business address.

Colmore Row and its environs were designated a conservation area in 1971, which was extended twice in 1985. Colmore Row itself has 23 listed buildings, two listed at Grade I and two at Grade II*.

History

Before this area of Birmingham was developed in the 18th century, Colmore Row was a country lane called New Hall Lane, connecting the roads from City centre to Dudley and West Bromwich and separating the farmlands of the New Hall Estate to the north from those of the Inge Estate to the south. Development of the south of the lane started with the building of St Philip's Church (now St Philip's Cathedral) in 1708. In 1746 a private Act of Parliament opened up the New Hall Estate to the north for development, with the first plots being let and developed from 1747 onwards.

The road was renamed at this point, but initially only the stretch between Newhall Street and Livery Street was named Colmore Row (after the Colmore family, owners of the New Hall Estate). The stretch between Newhall Street and New Street was named Ann Street, after head of the family Ann Colmore, while the stretch north of Livery Street, originally called Bull Lane, became known as Monmouth Street.