Alice and Stephen discuss a 37-storey tower in Birmingham, Europe's biggest outdoor products store, and plans for a new bar in Liverpool.
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00:00A 37-storey tower in Birmingham, Europe's biggest outdoor product store, and a new bar
00:05in Liverpool featuring today's business briefing.
00:13I'm Stephen Fowle.
00:14And I'm Anas Bird.
00:15Well, Stephen, we'll start today's briefing with an update on some plans that we discussed
00:20last week for a 37-storey residential tower in Birmingham.
00:24So you may remember Moda is the developer behind that scheme, which will feature more
00:29than 460 homes, and it forms part of the new Garden Square neighbourhood in Ladywood.
00:36So Birmingham City Council's planning committee met yesterday to discuss those plans, and
00:40they signed them off.
00:41So work can now get underway, and it's expected that more than 400 jobs will be created during
00:46the construction phase of that development.
00:48All right.
00:49So, yeah, really big development there, then, yeah?
00:51Yeah.
00:52Well, sticking with the property news, up in Yorkshire, we've got the announcement that
00:56Go Outdoors is set to open what they're saying is going to be Europe's biggest outdoor product
01:02store in York later this month.
01:05So the Go York store is going to open at the Vanguard Shopping Park on the 23rd of August,
01:10and that will be ahead of the grand opening weekend on the 7th and 8th of September.
01:16That will be featuring TV's Helen Skelton doing the opening there.
01:20So, yeah, should be a good one to pop along to.
01:23The store itself will measure 125,000 square foot, so really huge footprint there.
01:27It will feature almost 400 brands.
01:30There'll be 30 trading concessionaries as well, featuring the likes of Yeti, Garmin,
01:36Adidas, Terex, Stanley.
01:40The store has created 42 jobs, and that is in addition to a further 28 roles from staff
01:46who have moved over from the previous Go Outdoors store in York.
01:50So yeah, really exciting development there.
01:52Yeah, cool.
01:53I feel like even if you're not an outdoorsy person, those shops are just so fun to kind
01:56of walk around.
01:57Yes, exactly.
01:58There's so much stuff to look at.
01:59It really does inspire you to try and take up hiking.
02:02Yeah.
02:03Well, sticking on developments, we've got some news from Ark Inspirations.
02:09So I think following kind of the bounce back of the COVID, there's a lot of businesses,
02:13hospitality businesses that are looking to expand across the UK.
02:17Ark is one of those.
02:18So they're behind the brands Banyan, Box, and Manhattan.
02:23And in some recent news, they've submitted plans to open a new site within the Lyceum
02:28building on Bold Street in Liverpool.
02:31So the bar, it'll be a cocktail bar, and it'll be under the Manhattan brand.
02:35If you've never been to one of those before, it's kind of a New York-inspired brand.
02:40It says in the planning statement that it's going to be very glamorous.
02:42It's obviously going to be in a really beautiful building, which dates back to the 1800s.
02:48Now, it is Grade II listing, so obviously they are having to take that into consideration,
02:52but they've said that they're going to sensitively restore the building.
02:56Now Ark is actually headquartered in Yorkshire.
02:59So if you read our Yorkshire newsletter, you may have seen some news recently about them
03:03securing £7 million in funding to support their UK rollout.
03:08So when that funding was announced, they actually did mention Liverpool as a place for potential
03:14sites.
03:15So obviously that's nice to see that that's coming forward.
03:18They've also flagged London and Cardiff as potential locations, but it sounds like they've
03:22got lots of other places in the pipeline.
03:24Yeah, keep an eye out in the town near you.
03:27Sticking with beer for our last story, our colleague Ben Butler, the South West correspondent,
03:32has spoken to a Cornish brewery about their launch of a new alcohol-free lager.
03:37So Firebrand was established in 2012, produces a range of beers and ales with Patchwork Rocket
03:43Pale, its flagship beer.
03:45It launched its first alcohol-free Hazy Pale beer last year and has now launched Little
03:51Wave, its first alcohol-free lager.
03:54So Head Brewer has spoken to Insider about how the company is going to grow, using the
04:00alcohol-free beers as a way to grow and expand across the UK outside of its normal Cornish
04:07heartland.
04:08You've seen supermarkets now, there's a lot more choice with alcohol-free beers, there's
04:12more in pubs and things like that.
04:13So it's a real growth area that they're looking to take advantage of.
04:16The company employs 12 full-time equivalent staff at the moment and hopefully as they
04:21expand they're looking to create more jobs.
04:23Yeah, that definitely is a growth area.
04:24I feel like even in the past if you'd go to a bar and someone was driving they'd just
04:28get a soft drink, but now a lot more people are like, oh I'll actually just get an alcohol-free
04:33version.
04:34Yeah, it's just a lot more common than it used to be I think.
04:36Yeah, sure.
04:37Well if you'd like to read the full interview or find out any more information on any of
04:41the stories we've discussed today, you can do so on insidermedia.com.
04:45While you're there you can also subscribe to our newsletters as well as our magazines.
04:49That's everything from us today.
04:52Goodbye.