By Ian McConnell

Business Editor

THE Scottish Design Exchange, which provides a high street presence to hundreds of small, independent producers, is launching its second outlet in Edinburgh as part of a long-term expansion drive, leasing the historic Tron Kirk building on the Royal Mile.

The community interest company has signed a three-year lease with the Scottish Heritage Buildings Trust, which manages the 17th-century building. This will, from July 1, provide a retail space for more than 20 artists, designers, and craftspeople, seven days a week, and there will be occasional events and exhibitions.

The Scottish Design Exchange said “uncertainty” had “surrounded the future of the building, which was once Edinburgh’s main parish church”.

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It noted the building had been empty for decades after closing as a church in 1952 and had been on Historic Environment Scotland’s Buildings at Risk Register since 2003.

The Scottish Design Exchange said: “Most recently, it was used as a gift and book shop as well as housing the Edinburgh World Heritage Exhibition, but it has been vacant and unused since the pandemic lockdown forced its closure in 2020.”

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The community interest company declared it is “bucking the trend of retail market contraction elsewhere” with its “social enterprise model of bringing original, high-quality products made by small, independent local producers to the high street”. The Scottish Design Exchange has generated more than £4 million of income for hundreds of tenants at its stores in George Street in Edinburgh and Buchanan Galleries in Glasgow since it was launched in 2015.

Chief executive Lynzi Leroy, noting she had been inundated with demands from artists to showcase their work at the Royal Mile site, said: “The Tron Kirk is on one of the UK’s busiest thoroughfares and we are delighted at having the opportunity to use this prize location to showcase local artists, designers and makers.”