The Royal Liver Building is a famous landmark around the streets of Liverpool. Reaching 98m high, it was the tallest building in Liverpool for 54 years. What also makes it the most famous building in Liverpool is that the symbol of Liverpool sits upon it; The Liver Bird. Which is most commonly associated with Liverpool Football Club.
The Royal Liver building was constructed for the purposes of becoming a head office for the Royal Liver Assurance Limited group, as their company expanded they needed more real estate to enhance their work rate.
Although the company had vastly expanded; having over 5,000 employees, the Royal Liver building was built on a much larger scale; more of an investment for the company. The Royal Liver Assurance Limited group only actually required 2 of the floors once the building was finally constructed. As the Royal Liver building is 13 floors high the other 11 floors are rented out to several different tenants for a separate negotiated price, there are however several conference rooms which can be rented out to other companies or the public if they needed it, for the prices listed below.
There are also occasional events which allow the public access to the building, such as artwork shows.
The Royal Liver building was constructed at a rate of 1 floor every 19 days.
This back in 1908-1911 was a pretty standard rate, however when compared to todays building rates for example in China they recently finished a 57 storey skyscraper in just 19 days, 1 floor every 19 days sounds quite slow.
However the Royal Liver building at that time wasn’t just your average building construction. It was made with reinforced concrete, which was only new at that time. That may have been one reason the build took 3 years to complete.
The build was finished in 1911 on July 19th and had a total of 19 lift shafts inside. Although only 11 of them are still in use today.
Overall the Royal Liver building was deemed a success, being one the first buildings in the world made from reinforced concrete and also known as Britain’s first skyscraper it managed to achieve a grade 1 listing which is still in place today. The total build came in at £533,000 (£58,000,000 in todays money) and because it is still owned and used by the same company it was created for, this building was a major investment that surely paid off.
Royal Liver Building, Liverpool 