A global investment company has cleared one of the biggest hurdles facing its £850m scheme to transform the heart of Edinburgh. The milestone development is the largest regeneration project currently underway in the UK.
Despite opposition from conservationists and heritage campaigners, city council planners have backed TH Real Estate’s mixed-use Edinburgh St James scheme. It’s claimed the landmark project will create up to 5000 temporary and 3000 permanent jobs, and pump £25m into the local economy each year.
Designed by Edinburgh-based Allan Murray Architects, the massive scheme will see the Scottish capital’s 1970s built St James Centre replaced with 750,000 sq ft of retail space, a luxury hotel, up to 250 new homes, 30 restaurants and a multi-screen cinema.
Subject to a Compulsory Purchase Order, scheduled for September, and all the current tenants vacating the shopping complex by January, demolition work will begin early next year. The entire scheme should be finished by late 2020.
Frank Ross, convener of the city’s economy committee which backed the scheme, said: “I am delighted that this hugely important development for Edinburgh can now move forward.
“This project will transform the east end of Princes Street, and the city centre as a whole, creating thousands of new jobs and greatly enhancing the capital’s retail offering,” he added.
It is hoped that planning permission for the scheme’s luxury hotel will be granted when that design goes before the city council later this summer. Overlooking St James Square and proposed as a “landmark building”, the hotel will include up to 210 beds and feature restaurants, bars and a rooftop terrace.
“We are absolutely delighted that the City of Edinburgh Council is backing our vision for Edinburgh St James,” commented TH Real Estate’s director of development, Martin Perry. “We are now focused on the next phase of our plans for this landmark development — providing Edinburgh with a brand new, vibrant and exciting place to live, visit and shop in the heart of the city.”
The St James retail scheme — which developers claim will elevate Edinburgh to seventh place in the UK league of shopping destinations — has prompted fierce criticism almost from the moment it was unveiled three years ago.
Recently concerns were raised over the use of limestone on the project’s façades, described by conservationists as “alien” and “detrimental” to the character of the historic New Town, which is constructed largely from sandstone.
The developer argued that the use of sandstone cladding was impossible, with no quarries in Europe able to supply the hundreds of thousands of square feet of stone needed within the construction period. TH Real Estate also warned its plans would have to be redrawn, adding tens of thousands of pounds to the project.
Following the go-ahead Marion Williams, director of conservation group the Cockburn Association, repeated her warning that Edinburgh was likely to face a challenge to its World Heritage status once the scheme was completed.
“Sadly Edinburgh’s planning committee has decided that limestone is OK on the primary façades of the St James development against the advice of Historic Scotland, the World Heritage Trust, the planning officers and the Cockburn Association,” she said.
