City planners are poised to give the green light to the first phase of a new £35 million development at
Called iCentrum, it will be the first of an expected four buildings to be constructed on land off Holt Street next to
Officers have recommended members of the planning committee grant approval when they meet on Thursday for the £7.5 million building which will join Faraday Wharf in the Innovation Birmingham Campus (IBC) section of the science park.
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IBC said funding was in place to ensure work would start within weeks if given approval, meaning the 44,100 sq ft facility could be open by the end of next year.
The new businesses in iCentrum are expected to create 400 high-value skilled tech jobs and generate £25 million of GVA to the local economy per year.
The overall project in spring 2011.
iCentrum will and will be one of the first projects to start on site within the Enterprise Zone which has 26 locations within central Birmingham.
IBC's chief executive David Hardman said: "We have a waiting list for space at the campus and this new, state-of-the-art incubation facility, which will be located next to our landmark Faraday Wharf building, will drive a new generation of tech business for the city and create 400 high-value skilled jobs for the local economy.
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"Several years ago, a redundant industrial building that occupied the iCentrum plot was cleared, so we are hopeful for a very swift start to the build programme.
"In order to pave the way for new development, we have recently invested heavily in our communications infrastructure to enable future occupiers to benefit from broadband speeds of 30Gbit/s.
"Everything is in place to ensure this will be the first Birmingham Enterprise Zone scheme to start on site and open for occupation."
iCentrum will have both self-contained office suites and a base for the Serendip business incubator programme, supporting companies in the ICT and digital gaming, built environment, digital medtech and digital media sectors.
IBC and Birmingham Science Park Aston are wholly owned by