Tall buildings become more financialy viable after a certain height, the taller they are the MORE rentable space available not LESS....Admiral could afford a building 40 stories heigh if they wanted too with their turnover millions, they could have borrowed many many more millions if they wanted too....they are not just based in Cardiff dont forget guys, they have huge new buildings in Swansea (actually they have 2 in Swansea) and a new one going up in Newport too, they have to balance their portfolio spend in 3 cities..i think the building being built in CARDIFF is enough kudos on its own, i think that fact isnt bigged up enough, i now live in London and its never argued how tall or big head offices are but rather what local area actually GETS the offices?....and actually it still IS a very big building, Cardiff is still growing when it comes to its skyline, if how much its changed over the last 15yrs is anything to go by then in another 10-15 yrs just imagine?

i didnt realise how easy it was to post on here guys? iv been a fan for years, keeping up to date with my capital city news since i live in London is very important to me as im a huge Cardiff/Skyscraper fan, im going to do more in future....

Truth be told, when I first heard that Admiral were building a new headquarters, I was hoping that they would build the tallest building in Wales.

yeah a statement building would have been very good for Cardiff, but an 11-12 storie building IS a big one all the same, in Swansea they have over 2000 staff in a 3 storie building, maybe the welsh government should have had a closer dialogue with the big guys at Admiral on taking a space in the proposed Business District?......also anything grandiose would have to be justified to the shareholders too? The ONE thing that puzzles me mostly is why they havnt built bigger with regards to future expansion? i mean Admiral has 1000's of staff and take on 100's every few years so where are all of them going to go?

Paul, its a pleasure to join in, im very interested. Thank you for the welcome...

This piece in the FT's fDi magazine gives a good overview of the plans for the enterprise zone and the FPS sector in general.

Makes for good reading and will, no doubt, pass across the desk of some of the key decision-makers in the market.

Link here: http://goo.gl/9xbAel

It's very good but how sad that a key selling point is that wages in the financial sector are 33% lower than the UK average. Although this reflects the lower living costs in Cardiff I think it's sadly also due to a glut of low-end jobs.

I think it has been asked before, but does anyone know the height that you can legally build to in Cardiff? I should imagine fairly high, what with the airport being fairly far away, and whatnot.

20 miles I think....then they need to provide oxygen...raises the costs!

Here's another photo ...

That photo looks a lot better James. Get rid of the owl and develop the rapport site and cia and that part of the centre would look decent IMHO

Great photo, thanks James....and again it shows that the building isnt as small and pointless as some think....its looking pretty impressive actualy!

I have to say the building has grown on me. I'd like to of seen it 4 or 5 story's taller but i think this is a building cardiff can be proud of.

You're right about Barclays partner finance. My bad. I was referring to barclaycard which iirc is based out of Northampton

From the Marriott this morning

Fantastic Photos!! thanks for posting them - and call me sherlock but if you've left your old place are you now living in the Marriott!!

Lol no i'm not living in the Marriott, i'm living in Celestia.

These are amazing pictures guys! thanks.....when Admiral Tower is complete the view of the tower from here will be great, this time next year...

hi another month has gone by, so i was wondering if any one can take some new pics of the build please.

No Photos i'm afraid. But I can confirm the cladding looks to be almost complete and the windows are now going in at fairly significant rate.

Won't be long (maybe Christmas) before it is sealed and weather proof.

I would say they are ahead of schedule as Admiral are planning to start a phased move in Autumn 2014.

(Slowly getting the hang of this. Click the thumbnails for a fuller version.)

I know you mean well but my bionic eye is in the repair shop being fixed.

Seriously, good pics, number two makes the building look flat

I was passing by today so I thought I would take a picture of the progress

How do you get access to the Marriot roof?

You dont, you get access to the 10th floor, much like the Radisson Blu which has excellent views west from the top floor.

So they're taken through a window? Amazed at the lack of reflections. Great shots by the way. Could I buy a print?

Here's a photo taken from the old Penarth Landfill site

Have the designs for the building changed? When I went passed this morning on the train I noticed that the windows being added to the front seem to have coloured inserts. I dont remember seeing this kind of design in any of the renders, it was just concrete and glass like something built in the 60s. Are these coloured inserts being added to each side of the building or just the front?

The whole area is a bit of a mess, thought it would be tidier than befor

The Charles street pic looks nice

I must admit, it looks a lot better than I thought it was going to.

It's still absolutely criminal that it was built on top of the park instead of the Rapport site.

Why? The Park was only a bit of temporary landscaping for a development site: it was never intended to be a permanent feature of the city. As some have commented on here before - if the developer had left it as a building site rather than tidying it up prior to development, they wouldn't have had the same complaints about the subsequent development.

The Rspport site is still available for development in the coming years - perhaps for Admiral Phase 2.

I think the colours will change a little. My guess is more of the blue will be covered / removed by the time it is finished.

I don't think there will be much if any blue involved in the finished building - it's just a protective film by the looks of it.

I agree Paul. If you look at the photos closely you'll see that (...he puts on his technical hat...) there are vertical grey coloured beam things which have only been inserted in one of the lower sections of the bottom photos. These will presumably also be inserted similarly elsewhere on that flank.

The decals on the lower half of the windows 'in between' the beams are likely to be just protective and removable.Some windows don't have them.

Now if that post doesn't make sense, quite frankly I don't know what does.

27th Feb..

no progress update, just a little bit about admiral

financial services and the private sector leading the Welsh recovery

21st March..

28th March

28th April..

There's not much left to do on the exterior now is there ?

Is Admiral really based in Cardiff? I mean the senior management etc.