One of Scotland's most experienced commercial property investors has been appointed to the board of Dundee Design Limited, the body charged with delivering the £80.11 million riverside V&A Museum of Design.

David Hunter, an international property consultant and former managing director of Aberdeen Property Investors, a £6.5 billion fund under Aberdeen Asset Managers, will sit on DDL's main board, chaired by Lesley Knox. He will also oversee the building sub-committee that will liaise with contractors BAM on the three-year construction programme.

Glasgow-born Hunter, who has developed major commercial developments such as West London's Chiswick Park, told the Sunday Herald that he was "proud and privileged" to be involved in a "sensational, once-in-a-lifetime" project like the new V&A, designed by the Japanese architect Kengo Kuma.

Originally priced at £45m, the costs of the project, expected to be completed in June 2018, were controversially increased to £80m following detailed negotiations with the contractors.

Hunter, whose post will be unpaid, said: "There were some genuine surprises along the way that led to the higher figure, but the price we now have is the best it can be. It is a realistic figure with a normal 'cushion' for contingencies, and we are where we are."

He added: "Like the rest of us I've seen public sector projects that haven't gone as expected, but before taking on this post I satisfied myself that the project was well-founded and well-led, that I was signing up to something where I could add value, and there was a team in place could deliver the project to budget and on time."

Hunter said he was satisfied that the project would not be subject to the kind of mid-contract design changes that notoriously led to runaway cost escalation on the Scottish Parliament building between 1999 and 2004, a product, he said, of "too many people being able to come in and say 'can we have the toilets on the right rather than the left?' That won't be allowed to happen here."

Currently chairman of ICG Longbow and Custodian Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), Hunter is also director of Yatra Capital, an Indian property company overseeing investments in the UK, India and South Africa. He was President of the British Property Federation in 2004, and actively involved in the introduction of REITs to the UK. He was also inaugural Chairman of the Scottish Property Federation.