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06 Jul 2015

Luxury Edinburgh hotel approved as part of redevelopment of World Heritage Site

Planning permission has been granted for a major mixed-use development in Edinburgh, UK, which will see a luxury hotel, 30 restaurants and a multi-screen cinema created.

Allan Murray Architects and BDP masterplanned the £850m ($1.3bn, €1.2bn) Edinburgh St James scheme which is located in a World Heritage Site at the Scottish city’s St James Quarter.

The five-star hotel, designed by London-based Jestico & Whiles as the centrepiece of the project, will feature up to 210 bedrooms, as well as a 41,000sq ft (3,809sq m) apart hotel that has the potential to provide 70 suites. The practice envisages a hotel that appears as a bundle of ‘coiled ribbons’, creating a “free-flowing and bold” building.

The new development as a whole will take up 160,000sq m (1.7m sq ft) and replace a 1970s shopping centre. Retail space comprising 70,000sq m (753,474sq ft) and up to 250 new homes will also be created.

Developer TIAA Henderson Real Estate is behind the scheme, which revolves around an open air galleria street intended to create a series of refined public spaces and squares.

Allan Murray Architects’ and BDP’s design is influenced by Edinburgh’s classical geometry of crescents and circuses, and will complement the city’s “sophisticated architecture, character and history”.

Heritage architect Purcell will take the lead in the design of the parts of the development which feature listed buildings – the Mansion Capital building and St Andrews Hall – while OPEN is the landscape architect on the development.

Although outline planning consent was granted in 2009, the scheme was put on hold in 2012. However, with planning permission now in place construction work is expected to begin later this year, with completion scheduled for 2020.