Alpha Tower is a Grade II listed office skyscraper in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. It was designed by the Birmingham-born architect George Marsh of Richard Seifert & Partners as the headquarters of the commercial television company ATV (Associated Television) and part of the company's production studio complex known as ATV Centre, an adjacent shorter tower was planned but was never built. ATV closed in 1982, after which the building became offices. At , as of 2023 it is the eighth-tallest building in Birmingham, and became the second-tallest office building in Birmingham after 103 Colmore Row () was topped out in 2020.

Building and architecture

It is a Grade A locally listed building. It was nominated for listed building status by the Twentieth Century Society in 2002, although the owners applied for a Certificate of Immunity from Listing. However,

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, a battlefield, medieval castles, Roman forts, historic industrial sites, Lis ...

added Alpha Tower to

The National Heritage List for England ''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The ...

on 31 July 2014. According to English Heritage:

Ownership

In the early 1990s the building was owned by Ellerman Investments - in turn owned by the Barclay Brothers. Arena Central Developments sold the building to Catalyst's European Property Fund in 2008 for £42.5 million. Birmingham City Council left tenancy in 2010 leaving the building 77% void.

Nationwide Building Society Nationwide Building Society is a British mutual financial institution and the largest building society in the world. As of 2024, it serves over 16 million members and operates entirely for their benefit, without shareholders. The society was e ...

put the building into receivership in 2012 and put it on the market for £10.25 million in 2013. The building was bought for £14million in February 2014 by Anglo Scandinavian Estates Group who were set to invest £9 million in a refurbishment of the building. In September 2023, '' The Business Desk'' reported that the refurbishment had been completed at the cost of £16.6 million.

Occupancy

Birmingham City Council took a large tenancy of the building until they vacated in 2010.

In popular culture

The tower featured in the

Cliff Richard Sir Cliff Richard (born Harry Rodger Webb; 14 October 1940) is a British singer and actor. He has total sales of over 21.5 million singles in the United Kingdom and, as of 2012, was the third-top-selling artist in UK Singles Chart histo ...

film '' Take Me High'' (1973) for both exterior and interior shots.

References

External links

BirminghamUK.comSkyscrapernews.com's entry
* * Office buildings completed in 1973 Skyscrapers in Birmingham, West Midlands ITV offices, studios and buildings Grade II listed buildings in Birmingham Skyscraper office buildings in England {{UK-listed-building-stub