THE Bank of Scotland has announced plans to open a new branch on the Mound and to create a luxury hotel which will transform one of the Old Town’s ugliest buildings.
Edinburgh City Council will tomorrow discuss proposals for a £7million project to turn the Scottish Parliament offices in the Royal Mile into a complex that will include a four-star hotel, shops, two restaurants and a flagship banking branch.
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ifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) will also redevelop offices opposite its headquarters on the Mound to create a new branch for existing "Mound customers".
The news comes months after the banking group unveiled a multi-million-pound restoration of its 19th-century headquarters, to celebrate its 200th anniversary, which included the removal of the retail branch in the building.
At the time, a number of former managers and high-profile figures in the business and legal community, including James Miller, the retired chairman of the Miller Group, spearheaded a campaign for the head office to retain its branch. Yesterday’s decision to retain a branch on the Mound, albeit opposite the HQ, and to open a flagship branch on George IV Bridge, will be seen by many as a move to ease concerns that the merger was eroding the 308-year-old traditions and culture of the bank.
A bank spokesman said: "We said a stone’s throw and we meant it; the new branch will still be on the Mound. The Mound will still be very much the address which is expressed on cheque books, on customer communication, and the staff that will be dedicated for our head-office customers will be based on the Mound."
HBOS plans to demolish much of the parliament’s offices, formerly the Lothian Regional Council HQ, leaving only the structural framework, such as steel trusses, and replace it with a design "in keeping" with the architectural ethos of the Old Town.
Allan Murray, the award-winning Edinburgh architect who designed the Tun building in Holyrood Road, has been asked to draw up designs for the site, with Kilmartin Property Group as the development consultants.
The new building will include a 700sq m retail area and "at least two substantial restaurants". The centrepiece is a 110-bedroom luxury hotel, which will be run in partnership with a four-star hotel chain.
The spokesman said: "At this stage it would be unfair to disclose who we have approached, but it is fair to say it will be at the top end of the market."
David McDonald, the director of the city heritage body the Cockburn Association, yesterday welcomed the news.
"In principle we are keen to see the current structure go, but with caution as we would like to see the plans. A modern building would be acceptable as long as it was sympathetic to the surroundings. The current structure is definitely an eyesore. One of the things we have said is that we would definitely be keen to see contracts signed before the building is vacated."
Last month, Donald Anderson, the city council leader, vowed the council would insist the "horrible" building, completed in 1970, was replaced as a condition of the sale of the site. Yesterday, he declined to comment, but in a report to be discussed in private tomorrow night by councillors, Andrew Holmes, the director of city development, said HBOS had emerged as the right buyer.
Mr Holmes said: "While a number of organisations, agents, architects, etc, have shown an interest in some or all of the surplus portfolio, only HBOS has approached with a firm proposal for this property."
MSPs, their staff and parliament workers are all based in the five-storey building, but are due to move to the controversial Holyrood complex in the summer.
HBOS approached the council in September about buying the building to create a new branch because it was so close to its existing headquarters. It still plans to do this, as well as opening a new branch on the Mound itself.
The centrepiece of the plans for the headquarters is the removal of the floor above the current banking hall, added during alterations in 1929, to recreate the architect David Bryce’s original Great Hall.
The plans also include a new suite of meeting and dining rooms, a larger museum to house artefacts from across the group, and the grassing-over of the existing car park, which is visible from Princes Street, to fit in with its surroundings.
Work will begin late next year and is scheduled for completion in spring 2006.
The full article contains 776 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
