Client-Side Project Management of a Multi-Unit Roadside Retail Development

Project Overview

A cleared, long-redundant site on a busy main-road frontage in south Birmingham was to be redeveloped into a multi-unit roadside retail scheme (a drive-thru coffee unit, a food-retail store and ancillary office space) together with all the access, highway and infrastructure works such a frontage demands.

AXIOS Building Consultants was appointed by the developer as the single client-side representative for the whole scheme, its eyes, ears and mouth on the ground. From a brief to deliver the development end to end, we took the project from an empty, derelict site through design, statutory approvals, utilities and construction to completed, occupied commercial units.

The AXIOS Role

We acted as project manager and employer’s agent, giving the developer one accountable point of control across every discipline and every workstream. Rather than leaving the client to run a dozen separate consultants, contractors and statutory bodies, AXIOS held the whole programme together, commissioning and coordinating the professional team, managing their fees and deliverables, driving the process forward, and reporting back to the client throughout.

Coordinating the Design & Consultant Team

A scheme of this kind draws on a broad professional team. AXIOS commissioned, briefed and coordinated specialists across:

• Architecture and detailed design
• Structural and civil engineering
• Drainage strategy and flood risk
• Transport, highways and swept-path analysis
• Ecology and habitat survey
• Heritage assessment
• Acoustic assessment
• Mechanical, electrical and energy compliance (EPC / SBEM)
• CDM coordination and health & safety

We managed the team’s fee structure and outputs through the pre-construction stages, and coordinated the orderly handover of the design package to the main contractor as the scheme moved into construction.

Highway Works, Utilities & Statutory Approvals

A busy main-road frontage made the off-site works as demanding as the buildings. AXIOS drove these workstreams to agreement and delivery:

• A Section 278 highway agreement with the local highway authority (new kerbing, pedestrian crossings, signage and lining, street lighting and traffic management), supported by independent road safety audits
• New and diverted electricity, gas and water / drainage connections, coordinated with the statutory undertakers

Site Photographs

Representative images from the development: the completed units and frontage, the new parking, landscaping and public-realm works, and a retail unit interior before fit-out. The location is given only to area level.

Project Film

A short aerial and on-site film of the development, from demolition and steelwork through to the completed scheme.

What AXIOS Delivered

• Full client-side project management and employer’s-agent service
• Procurement and coordination of the entire professional team
• Consultant fee and programme management
• A Section 278 highway agreement managed through to completion
• Statutory approvals and utility connections
• Client reporting from inception through to practical completion

Outcome

What began as a cleared, derelict roadside site was delivered as a completed, occupied multi-unit commercial development, built, connected and signed off. By giving the developer a single, accountable point of control, AXIOS turned a complex programme of designers, contractors, utilities and authorities into one coordinated project, and saw it through from first instruction to handover.