AN EDINBURGH housebuilder will be the first tenant at a new Midlothian business park, The Scotsman can reveal.
The speculatively developed park is the first phase of the "south-east wedge", a £500 million development planned for the outskirts of the capital. Macfarlane Homes will be the first company to move to the Shawfair Park office complex.
It has
acquired one of three recently-completed buildings that make up the £7m first phase of a 45-acre office park developed by the Duke of Buccleuch's development company, Bucchleuch Property.
The park is being developed on land that is part of the historic Buccleuch holdings, on the Dalkeith Estate. Buccleuch Property has also revealed it is close to submitting an application for detailed planning consent on a new 150-room hotel adjacent to the business park.
The company claims it will be run by a so far unnamed "top name" hotel operator. Sandy Smith, Bucchleuch Development's property director said the group had been approached by a number of potential developers interested in building a hotel on the site.
However, it chose to form a joint venture with a specialist hotel property manager to develop the project itself. Smith expects work to begin in the autumn to complete in autumn 2009.
Smith said: "Rather than sell a chunk of land for someone else to do it, that is sort of giving it away, we thought we would do it.
"The thing about Buccleuch is we can take a slightly longer-term view. It means we can take slightly different avenues of business."
Last February, private operator Spire Healthcare unveiled plans for a £25m hospital next to Shawfair Park. A deal with a second tenant for the complex is under negotiation.
Cam Stott, a partner at letting agents Jones Lang Lasalle, said agents were targeting medical supply companies interested in being close to both the private hospital and the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.
He said: "The fact the hospital is here has been a great win for us. On the back of that, there have been a number of inquiries."
Plans for the south-east wedge – a slice of land on the edge of Edinburgh – have been over 20 years in the making. Planning delays and negotiation among the various public and private sector partners involved have also put a hold on development of the area, formerly colliery and farming land.
Work on the wider project, which will see the development of 4,500 new homes, will start when the partners behind the deal, including Edinburgh and Midlothian Councils, Miller Group, Buccleuch and housebuilder MacTaggart & Mickel, sign off on a section 75 agreement allocating how the £100m bill for infrastructure, such as sewerage and roads, will be divided up.
Russell Imrie , of Midlothian Council, said the partners were "just about there" and set out the deadline for the deal to be agreed on 16 May.
"They are all desperate to get on with it," said Imrie. "This is just the tip of the wedge. It is great news for all of us."
The full article contains 516 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
