Why Timing Is Everything For Big City Regeneration, As Coventry Knows Only Too Well
Timing, like location, is one of the twin gods of property. Offend them and things go badly wrong, as the UK Midlands city of Coventry has every reason to know.
Shearer Property Group is to team up with development and funding partner The Hill Group, the family-owned housebuilder, for Coventry‘s £450M City Centre South redevelopment.
Hill Group “has committed significant investment” to Shearer’s delivery vehicle, Shearer Property Regen Ltd, the company said in a statement.
Outline planning permission was granted for CCS in January 2022. Detailed consents will now be needed ahead of a start of work on-site in summer 2023.
City Centre South will be a new residential, shopping and leisure destination.
This is great news, and long-awaited, but whether by bad luck or poor judgement, Coventry City Council’s regeneration timing has often been unfortunate.
The council revealed a £1B regeneration master plan by U.S. architect Jerde in April 2008, as the Great Financial Crisis resounded around the world. This was the spring when the housing market collapsed.
By 2012 plans had been scaled back to a more deliverable scheme of less North American proportions, but progress was still uncertain.
Around 440K SF of new retail space was planned just as online retailing began to get going: 2012 was the year Amazon announced next-day delivery.
Today, as the latest plans move forward, rising inflation and stuttering growth mean the global economy is entering a period of great uncertainty.
