Lendlease has beaten Delancey to become the development partner at Birmingham City Council’s 41-acre Smithfield wholesale markets site.

The £1.5B redevelopment project will reposition the city on an international stage, the council said when making the announcement.

Lendlease will form a contractual joint venture with the City Council and lead the creation of an urban quarter that includes a new home for the city’s historic Bull Ring retail markets, a unique family destination including a leisure and cultural offer, a new public square, integrated public transport and more than 2,000 homes with a public park and community facilities.

The development will be a short walk from the new HS2 city-centre terminus at Curzon Street, which is set to open in 2026.

Lendlease were head-to-head with Delancey and their partners Oxford Properties, Qatari Diar and APG to claim preferred developer status for Birmingham's wholesale markets development, CoStar reported last year.

“Lendlease has the capabilities and resources to realise the city’s vision and deliver a truly transformational development scheme," Birmingham City Council Corporate Director for Economy Waheed Nazir said. "Working with Lendlease, we will be creating a new family leisure destination complemented by an exciting mix of cultural facilities, independent retail and business space.”

Birmingham City Council disclosed in August 2018 that they are "having some phenomenal conversations" about potential operators for up to 2M SF of leisure floorspace on the city's Smithfield wholesale markets site.

The redevelopment of the area, which is twice the size of Brindleyplace, is expected to take 15 years to complete. The first phase of the scheme will include new homes, the new retail markets building and public realm.

The City Council will now work with Lendlease to finalise the terms of the partnership, commence the preparation of a planning application and produce a business plan for the site’s redevelopment before the formal award of the Birmingham Smithfield Development Partner contract. This is anticipated to happen by late 2019, with development expected to commence in 2022.

The site is part of the Birmingham City Centre Enterprise Zone, which was established in 2011 to unlock key city centre development sites and accelerate growth.