A HOTEL deal has been agreed that pushes forward plans for a new "civic square" development off Edinburgh's Royal Mile.
Two Premier Inn hotels, with 257 rooms in total, could be built in a £150 million Caltongate proposal.
The agreement is between development consortium Artisan Real Estate Investors and Whitbread, which owns Premier Inn.
Lukas Nakos, Artisan's managing director, said high-quality hotel provision will be the cornerstone of the development.
He said: "We will be placing strong emphasis on the quality of design and materials to ensure both hotels reflect their historic Royal Mile setting as well as ensuring that the wider area benefits from the increased visitor spend."
The hotels are expected to be part of a wider mix built around a "pedestrian-friendly" urban centre. The plans include open public spaces with retailers, restaurants, homes and offices.
John Bates, of Whitbread Hotels and Restaurants, said: "This is another outstanding deal for Premier Inn. It gives us more than 257 new bedrooms in central Edinburgh and also our first new Hub by Premier Inn outside London."
Centred around a £6.5m civic square, Artisan claims the development will bring a new community facility and nearly 200 homes. The company claims the development will contribute £43m to the local economy each year.
A council hearing on the plans is due in January and if approved work could start by the middle of next year.
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