THE new owner of a city centre shopping mall in Edinburgh has signed up two new outlets as it prepares to go through a revamp.
Princes Mall has poached the Post Office from its rival, the St James Centre, and Sainsbury's has also signed up for the mall next to Waverley Station.
The London-based development firm Catalyst Capital bought the mall from the former Rangers owner Sir David Murray's company earlier this year as it was being sold as part of a ten-property portfolio from Premier Property Group for £43.1 million.
PPG is thought to have paid £37m ten years ago.
Catalyst Capital is spending £3m for a "transformative refurbishment" with business continuing as usual at the mall, it said.
TIAA Henderson Real Estate - formerly Henderson Global Investors - which owns the St James Centre in Edinburgh, is due to begin work on its £850m revamp that includes the removal of an "eyesore" tower next year.
TIAA, also London-based, which bought the building in 2006 for £184m, has plans that include enveloping the John Lewis building, by the new St James Quarter, with more than the 70 or so shops it currently has, flats, offices, cafes, a public square and at least one luxury hotel planned next to the playhouse Theatre.
The firm is due to outline more details of its plans later this month when it holds a public forum at the Glasshouse at Greenside Row.
A spokesman for Sainsbury's said it is to open a convenience shop in December.
The Post Office is due to open in the mall on Monday November 3.
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