£195m cultural centre is unveiled

Completion of the project is scheduled for 2013

Plans have been unveiled for a £195m West Midlands cultural centre, giving Birmingham a remodelled repertory theatre and a new library complex.

It will be one of the country's most modern buildings, the council said.

The new library will replace the present building, once described by Prince Charles as looking like "a place where books are incinerated, not kept".

A new theatre is included in the scheme on the north side of Centenary Square with a competition to pick the design.

The council's cabinet will be asked to give final approval on 22 October.

It is hoped that design work will start by summer 2008, with the project due for completion by 2013.

A place where books are incinerated, not kept Prince Charles on Birmingham's Central Library

It will be paid for by a combination of borrowing and cash raised from land sales.

It will enable the council to demolish the existing Central Library and proceed with the £1bn redevelopment of Paradise Circus.

Although only built in the 1960s, the Central Library has an outstanding £20m repair bill and is said to be unsuitable for 21st Century library users.

The Rep's existing 850-seat facilities will remain, with the new library theatre offering a 300-seat venue for medium-sized productions.

City Council Leader Mike Whitby said the project would replicate the confidence the city's forefathers had when they constructed buildings like the Town Hall, which has recently been renovated.

He said the new cultural centre would "leave a heritage of which we can all be proud".

But the Labour deputy leader Ian Ward said an earlier plan to site the new library elsewhere would have been preferable.

He said: "Building the library in Eastside would have brought people into the area and would have been a catalyst for wider economic regeneration.

"That is not needed in Centenary Square."