Snowhill is a mixed-use development in the Colmore business district, known historically as Snow Hill, in Central Birmingham, England.

The £500 million phased scheme has been partly completed on the site of a former surface car park adjacent to the railway station and West Midlands Metro terminus.

The glassworks were built in 1757 by Mayer Oppenheim, a London merchant who moved to Birmingham in the same year and who patented red (ruby) glass in 1755.

In 1970, Snow Hill station was redeveloped and the site became a surface car park and remained as such until construction work commenced.

St Chad's Cathedral is a Grade II* listed building designed by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin.

[12] National Express West Midlands bus services operate along Snow Hill Queensway and Colmore Circus.

[17] The development brief outlined a strategy which incorporated the extension of the West Midlands Metro light rail line and the conversion of Snow Hill Queensway to an 'urban boulevard'.

[18] At the time of the production of the Snow Hill Development Brief, the site was owned freehold by Birmingham City Council and Railtrack.

[22] Section 106 agreements were signed on 15 December 2007 between Birmingham City Council, RT Group and Anglo Irish Bank.

The first of these reserved matters planning applications was for the construction of an internal service road, covered car park, piazza deck and a tram viaduct.

The council's website summarised the planning application details as:[25] Detailed planning application for mixed-use development comprising 170 bedroom hotel (C1) standing 23 storeys in height (208 m AOD) and 332 residential apartments (C3) standing 43 storeys in height (260 m AOD) together with ancillary retail, leisure and conference facilities, landscaping and associated car parkingThe Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) were invited to comment on the towers.

It was summarised on the council's website as: Revisions to planning permission C/00391/07/FUL to permit a 43-storey residential tower (260m AOD) and a 25-storey hotel tower (209m AOD) together with ancillary retail, leisure and conferencing facilities, landscaping and associated car parkingOn 10 April 2008, it was deferred for an agreement over Section 106 payments.

[30] Phase 1 consists of the construction of a tram viaduct alongside Livery Street car park to take the West Midlands Metro into the city centre.

The viaduct will commence at Great Charles Street Queensway, adjacent to the bridge carrying railway services into Snow Hill station, and run along the length of the Snowhill site.

It will end at a piazza deck, from which the West Midlands Metro will leave the Snowhill site and go onto Colmore Circus, if the extension of Line 1 is approved.

[33] For the construction of the viaduct, Tarmac Precast were awarded a £300,000 contract by Kier Build to manufacture 250 specially designed TY and TYE complementary edge beams.

[36] The viaduct was designed by Alan Baxter and Associates LLP consulting engineers with Sidell Gibson Architects,[31] and is estimated to cost £9 million.

In early 2008, it was reported that Ballymore was in talks with law firm Wragge & Co and Barclays bank about taking up space within Phase Three.

[54] On 22 April 2008, Wragge & Co announced that they will be taking 250,000 sq ft (23,226 m2) of office space over 11 floors on a 20-year lease with flexibility to accommodate up to 1,800 people at Two Snowhill.

Phase Three also included for the installation of a 220 m (720 ft) long green wall with feature lighting alongside the Snowhill railway station facade, being the largest in Europe at that time.

As well as this, the hotel will also feature a 370-square-metre (3,983 sq ft) ballroom, four meeting rooms, a WestinWORKOUT Gym including a swimming pool, a spa, two restaurants, a bar and lobby lounge, one presidential suite and business centre.

In November 2006, Cushman & Wakefield were appointed by Ballymore to select a management company to purchase and operate the hotel at Snowhill.

The wall, which reaches up to seven metres high, incorporates 604 sq m of planting interspersed with decorative aluminium panels which have been designed to capture artificial and natural daylight.

[69] Initially, it was proposed to use in situ concrete flat slabs in the basement with a composite steel frame above podium level all on a 9m x 9m grid.

Below the slab, Barrett Steel Buildings had already left studs on the columns which allowed Kier to erect the RC basement beams later on.

Later, Mike Whitby, the head of Birmingham City Council, screwed a golden bolt into place in one of the building's steel columns.

[73] More than 35 people attended the event, including representatives from Hines and Ballymore and contractors Balfour Beatty, to thank the workforce and fill in the final piece of concrete.

The realignment and reconfiguration of St Chad's Circus on the Inner Ring Road freed up extra space on the Snowhill site to allow the construction of Phase 4.

[81] A pedestrian crossings and a landscaped public square in front of St Chad's Cathedral are to be created as a result of the work.

[85] For the work at basement level at Phase 4, Bachy Soletanche used two 50-tonne (49-long-ton) support cranes and two Bauer BG 22 piling rigs.