Brummy pragmatism will be celebrated on December 1 when a former Birmingham sorting office reopens as the West Midlands home of designer retailers such as Christian Lacroix, Emporio Armani and Harvey Nichols.
The Mailbox claims to be the largest mixed redevelopment of a single building in Europe. It also marks a significant moment in the revival of a formerly depressed part of Birmingham.
The frontage, to be occupied by a 180bedroom Malmaison hotel, faces north-east towards New Street, Birmingham's main rail station. This is a stone's throw from the Bull Ring and Martineau retail areas, themselves undergoing an £840 million sterling revamp at the hands of the Birmingham Alliance, a partnership between Hammerson, Land Securities and Henderson Investors.
To the north-west of the Mailbox lies the International Convention Centre, a conference venue favoured by clients such as the Confederation of British Industry, and Brindleyplace, a mini-Broadgate built by the developer Argent.
Mark Billingham, who with his partner Alan Chatham bought the old Royal Mail sorting office for £4m in 1998, says the £150m Mailbox redevelopment will "reconnect a part of the city that had become detached, helping the convention quarter work even better". He says: "There is little remaining space that has not been spoken for. More than 90 per cent of it has been let or is covered by preliminary agreements."
Retailers will occupy just 100,000 of the 1.4m sq ft, at rents of £30-£35 a square foot. There is an equal amount of restaurant space at £25£30 a square foot, which has attracted operators such as Fish and Santa Fe.
Another 250,000 sq ft is dedicated to offices, at £17£19 a square foot and there are 200 flats, most of which have already been sold, at £135,000 to £300,000 each. The remaining capacity will accommodate a budget hotel, an arts cinema, a health club and car parking.
To many outsiders, Birmingham is the capital of the UK's depressed manufacturing industries. But the latest developments show that it is also a city of burgeoning service businesses such as banks, law firms and accountants, whose employees are supporting a trend towards urban living.
Rebuilding has been actively promoted by a pro-business city council eager to counter the results of the people-hostile, car-friendly, planning regime of the 60s and 70s. It has instead backed pedestrianisation. It is fostering the creation of areas - for example, around the canal network - where people can walk away from roads.
The Mailbox fits this pattern with a "high street" flanked by shops running through its centre. The ICC and the bars and restaurants of Broad Street and Brindleyplace are an easy stroll away along a towpath. William Martin, partner for valuation in the Birmingham office of Knight Frank, the property consultants, says Mailbox "proves the validity of mixed developments" and improves the chances of success of smaller, bespoke schemes.
However, there are still plenty of big developments in the pipeline. Hampton Trust, in conjunction with Birmingham city council, is planning a huge mixed-use scheme, Arena Central, on the south side of Broad Street. The council is also hoping to attract more than £1bn to revitalise the run-down district to the east of the Bull Ring. The agent of change here is the lottery-funded Millennium Point development, which will combine a visitor attraction with academic facilities.
The obvious question posed by the number of cranes on the skyline is whether the market can absorb all the extra space. Knight Frank is sanguine. Mr Martin says prices are holding up well in the office sector: "Rents of £25 per square foot are not inappropriate for new premises in a prime location - we are marginally ahead of where we were at the last peak in the late 80s."
His colleague David Fenton, partner for residential property, says that the market for luxury flats, "which came from nothing four to five years ago, has gone through a corrective stage but should be rising from now on." Demand in Birmingham depends not only on the quality of schemes dreamt up by developers but also on the economy of the south-east. Buoyant prices in the south trigger an overspill of businesses and professionals into the West Midlands capital.
But although Birmingham had always been a cheaper place to live, one essential ingredient had been lacking: facilities and buildings good enough to make the city a lifestyle choice as well as an economic one. Developments such as the Mailbox and Brindleyplace are changing that.
