The job of building Moda Living's 42-storey Birmingham build-to-rent block has been given to John Sisk & Co.

The residential tower, which will include a hotel, 481 apartments and a 200-metre running track on the roof, will be Birmingham's first real skyscraper, but by no means the last.

Construction work on the £184M project at Broad Street will begin later this month with completion due in 2022, Construction Enquirer reported. Glenn Howells Architects designed the 433-foot-tall building.

When Moda launched the scheme in November 2017  it was an outrider in a city that had yet to experience high-rise living, or the build-to-rent boom. Today that has changed, with a new skyscraper surge changing the face of the city. Most recently Berkeley subsidiary St Joseph applied to develop a 37-storey tower at the Eastside Locks development, close to the HS2 rail station at Curzon Street.

However, there remain some concerns that Birmingham City Council's planning policy may require more work before it can make consistent sense of the rash of tower plans.