It is the last Georgian building on George Square.

 

The old North British Hotel - once home to shipping magnate and art collector William Burrell - has stood on Glasgow's premier civic space for more than two centuries.

Now renamed the Millennium, the landmark is to be morphed in to a hybrid high-rise, with a sky-high extension above its rare and historic mansard roof.

New images - published today for the first time - show the sheer scale of redevelopment planned for the hotel, still called the Copthorne by many.

City officials have confirmed that they - and not elected councillors - will make a final call on the scheme. Approval is expected, it is understood, imminently.

A spokesman for the local authority said: "This application is currently going through the planning process.

"It is likely to be dealt with under delegated authority as only two objections were raised (the trigger for going to committee is six or more) and a decision will be made in due course."

The delegated authority - when officials, not councillors, make the call - comes despite huge public interest in the massive regeneration of Queen Street station and Buchanan Galleries that has provoked the changes.

Councillors last week backed plans for a supermall - subsidised by the council under a controversial tax incremental funding scheme - that will spill over the station and surrounding blocks.

The city's popular Concert Hall steps are to be removed and a giant 11-storey car park built right behind the current Millennium to replace the existing mall lot, which is being turned in to shops and restaurants.

The Millennium & Copthorne Hotels, the firm that owns the Millennium, objected to those plans, which will see it lose dozens of rooms as Queen Street station pulls down its 1970s entranceway on George Square, site of the December bin lorry crash.

The company said it had to build high to make up for this loss - and protect George Square from the "looming" car park behind it.

It said: "The application proposes total refurbishment of the property, replacing the bedrooms which are being demolished, and providing a futuristic design solution that will mask the gable end of the car park."

The design - by London architects Hamiltons - is understood to include terraces with views over the square. It will restore the original facade - partly by removing a conservatory currently used as a coffee shop.

It is not clear how much the development will cost - but it has to be carried out at the same time as the work on the new car park, since the structures will share pilings.

The Restore George Square campaign has opposed the new approved giant car park. A spokesman said: "It is disappointing that the most important aspect of a modern extension on a 200-year-old building is not its architectural integrity but whether it is big enough to hide a brand-new multi-storey car park.

"Perhaps this is not altogether surprising, given recent events surrounding the redevelopment of George Square and the Concert Hall steps."

Neil Baxter, chief executive of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland, stressed just how unusual it is for a building to survive in central Glasgow for 200 years.

He said: "This is the last intact bit of George Square and one of the last Georgian buildings in the city."

The Millennium Hotel building dates from 1807, long before the 1842 station or any of the other structures on the square.

Initially a row of merchants' townhouses, including one occupied by Sir William Burrell, it was converted into a series of hotels in the 1860s, eventually becoming united in a single business, the North British Railway Hotel, as part of the station.

Its high-rise extension will be built on an incline and be roughly equivalent to eight floors, smaller than the neighbouring College of Printing.

That modern skyscraper, like the Millennium, is listed thanks to its rooftop structures inspired by French-Swiss architect Le Corbusier.