Hotels on Broad Street Birmingham and Brindleyplace, Compared by Night
Hotels on Broad Street Birmingham sit at the busiest junction of the city's evening.
Symphony Hall and the International Convention Centre are on the street, the arena is immediately behind it, and Gas Street Basin is a couple of minutes south. Almost nothing else in the centre is this concentrated.
That concentration is the reason to stay and the reason to ask about the room. The eastern end of Broad Street is the city's main run of bars, and the noise carries late at weekends. Which side of the building you are on changes the night more than the grade of the hotel does.
Brindleyplace, the quieter half
A few minutes west the street opens into Brindleyplace, the canalside development built around squares between the ICC and the Sea Life Centre.
It keeps the same walking distance to every venue on the street while losing the through traffic, and the water and the squares do the rest of the work.
The towpath is the detail people miss. It runs level and traffic-free from Gas Street Basin through the squares, which means the walk back from dinner has no roads in it at all.
On a warm evening the terraces along the water are the most obviously pleasant place in the centre.
Light sleepers booking for a weekend can use that split directly. A room at the Brindleyplace end keeps Symphony Hall and the arena within the same short walk, while the bars at the eastern end of the street stay far enough away to be heard only in passing. Asking which way the windows face settles most of it.
What Broad Street puts on the doorstep
Symphony Hall is inside the ICC on the street itself and seats 2,262, and the city-centre arena on King Edwards Road behind it holds around 15,800 people. Between them the two rooms take most of the concerts and touring shows that reach the city in any given month of the year.
The ICC handles the conference side of the same buildings, which is why delegate weeks and concert weekends compete for the same rooms.
Checking all three venue calendars before fixing your dates is worth considerably more than negotiating on the rate, and it is the cheapest piece of research available to anyone.
Getting to Broad Street and away again
New Street is about twelve minutes on foot through Centenary Square, past the Library of Birmingham with its rooftop garden.
The route is level throughout and well lit, and it is the longest walk you are likely to make from a Broad Street hotel to anything you actually came to the city for.
Driving needs the usual check first. Broad Street sits well inside the A4540 Middleway, so it is inside the Clean Air Zone, which runs around the clock; a non-compliant car pays ten pounds a day before the hotel has charged anything at all for the space it is parked in.
The comparison against the other central options is on hotels in Birmingham city centre, and the full area-by-area view on Birmingham hotels by area. Eating nearby, including how to time a table around a concert, is covered on restaurants on Broad Street, and the venues themselves on venues in Birmingham.
Questions about hotels on Broad Street Birmingham
Is Broad Street Birmingham noisy at night?
The eastern end is, and deliberately so: it is the city's main strip of bars and the noise carries late at weekends. Brindleyplace, a few minutes west and set back around its squares, is markedly quieter, and the canal side of any building is quieter again than the road side.
What is within walking distance of Broad Street hotels?
Symphony Hall and the International Convention Centre sit on the street itself, the city-centre arena stands on King Edwards Road behind it, and Gas Street Basin is a couple of minutes away. New Street station is about twelve minutes on foot through Centenary Square, which is comfortably the longest walk in that whole list.
Is Brindleyplace better than Broad Street for hotels?
For sleeping, usually. Brindleyplace is the canalside development between the ICC and the Sea Life Centre, built around squares, not a main road, so it keeps the same proximity to the venues while losing most of the through traffic and a good deal of the late-night noise that comes with it.
How do I reach Broad Street from Birmingham New Street?
Walk. It takes about twelve minutes through Centenary Square, past the Library of Birmingham, and the route is level the whole way. The canal towpath from Gas Street Basin gives you a traffic-free alternative for the last stretch of that walk if you would rather avoid the main road altogether.
Do Broad Street hotels fill up on event nights?
Sharply, and the effect reaches the whole centre. A concert at the arena, a run at the Hippodrome and a large NEC show on one weekend lift rates everywhere, and Broad Street feels it first because three of the city's biggest venues stand within a few minutes of each other here.