PROJECT DESCRIPTION
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Bullring is the largest retail regeneration project in Europe. The 26 acre site comprises 110,000 square metres of prime retail space trading over three levels.
METHOD
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Right from the pre-construction phase, the Birmingham Alliance set out to fully engage the public in the new development. Directed by Mel Evans, PR and Marketing Manager, the team set out to inform, engage, educate and listen to the views and concerns of future Bullring users. From simple street level posters to site tours, focus groups, email and web responses, the team sought to communicate at all levels.
The audiences Bullring aimed to engage were: residents of the West Midlands, City Centre residents, workers and shoppers, civic organisations, charities, local businesses, schools (primary and secondary) and colleges.
The main resource for involving the public was ‘Rotunda One Five’, an education resource centre designed and constructed on the 15th floor of the adjacent Rotunda Office building. The facility hosted 27,000 visitors of whom over 10,000 were school children. During the life of Rotunda onefive, whilst the most popular school activities were based around the views and cityscape visible from the floor, every single subject on the curriculum was actually covered - except physical education! Bullring also offered a programme of site tours during the latter stages of construction and took part in Birmingham’s Discovery Day, opening the site itself to 1000s of visitors.
The construction highlight was a spectacular ‘son et lumiere’ show in November 2001 that heralded the launch of the new Bullring brand to the retail trade. This event was widely covered by broadcast and print media.
‘Bullring Jobs 2003’ was a joint city campaign to attract job seekers to the 8000 new employment opportunities being created within Bullring. The employment and training initiative included a dedicated recruitment bus touring the city, a 3 day job fair and a specific job website. By 1 July 2003, 16,500 job seekers had registered.
BENEFIT
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The communications process allowed the project’s architects and designers to understand the needs and desires of Birmingham residents and shoppers. It highlighted the importance of restoring much loved buildings such as St Martins Church and Moor Street Station. It became clear that public art was important and the £2 million investment includes several key pieces by local and regional artists, including some brickwork of children’s reflections on their changing city.
By focusing on constant communication at all levels, both tactical and strategic, the team were able to gather valuable information particularly concerning access and the requirements of shoppers with special needs, disabled customers and customers with small children. These have been incorporated into the design of Bullring, and the lessons learnt taken forward to future projects.
The redevelopment of Bullring has become the catalyst for regenerating the city centre - over 1 million visitors enjoyed the first four days alone.
Children - and other visitors - to Rotunda onefive got a fantastic birds eye view of the changing face of their city, with the opportunity to literally watch Bullring grow beneath them. They were also able to view the models and imagery of the finished scheme, which promoted a great feeling of anticipation, excitement and ownership of Bullring.
