The prime Edinburgh site where HBOS had intended to construct a new purpose-built head- quarters has been put on the market.
The 13-acre canal-side site was home to Scottish & Newcastle’s Fountain Brewery until 2004 and then the brewer’s distribution centre.
It was acquired by the former HBOS in April 2008, months before the bank crashed, with a view to building a huge hub that would absorb 16 city offices, keeping only The Mound, on the model of Royal Bank of Scotland’s Gogarburn headquarters.
Last year Lloyds Banking Group announced the plans had been dropped.
Earlier this year, it gained outline planning consent for a major mixed-use development, including shops, housing, a hotel and student accommodation. Two acres have been sold to Napier University. The first phase will include the creation of a park.
Stewart Taylor, director at CB Richard Ellis (Scotland) which is marketing the site, said it was “one of the last large city centre brownfield sites in Edinburgh” and close to the financial district.
Nigel Waring, asset management director at Lloyds Banking Group, said: “We have worked closely with the City of Edinburgh Council to secure a planning consent for Fountain Quay which reflects their aspirations for regeneration of the site and the canal, while also being commercially viable for a developer.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article