A new public square is planned for the Royal Mile in the Scottish capital as part of a £150 million development in the Old Town World Heritage Site.
Developers said a major milestone in the New Waverley development, rebranded after the separate Caltongate project by a different company at the same site collapsed, is to be reached next month when work begins on the Royal Mile link.
New developer Artisan Real Estates Investors unveiled plans which include a 46-apartment Adagio Aparthotel which will face directly on to the Royal Mile, behind a retained facade of the C-listed Sailors Ark building.
The hotel will overlook the new £6.5 million public square, which is a focal point designed to "create a vibrant central hub" for New Waverley.
It also includes shops, restaurant and bar facilities on the ground floor of the hotel.
Construction work on the initial development phase of two Whitbread hotels with frontages on to East Market Street and Cranston Street is currently towered over by twin tower cranes on the site.
Work on the two hotels - a 127-room Premier Inn and a 121-room Hub by Premier Inn - began in November 2014 with a completion date set for mid-2016.
Clive Wilding, Artisan's Project Director, said: "The breakthrough to the Royal Mile marks a significant stage in the evolution of New Waverley, and its transformation of Edinburgh's Old Town and the entire city centre area.
"We are now seeing New Waverley's true scope and potential being delivered before us - a broad sweep of an historic part of the city integrating Edinburgh's busy New Street and Market Street with Waverley Station and the Royal Mile.
"The new public square, with stunning views over Calton Hill, will form a vibrant hub for this flagship mixed-use development and its surrounding area, creating an entirely new destination for Edinburgh."With it, we are creating the very heart of our development - a vibrant and pedestrian-friendly urban centre mixing open public spaces with high quality homes and offices, as well as restaurants, shops and hotels linking directly to one of the most iconic streets anywhere in the world."
He added: "We are working closely with the City of Edinburgh Council to create a community partnership to breathe new life into the area, using recently released funding.
"This includes arts projects such as the graffiti-based artworks on site hoardings and community events throughout the 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.Â
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.Â
That is invaluable.Â
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