One of Scotland's most experienced commercial property investors has been appointed to the board of Dundee Design Limited, the body charged with delivering the £80.11 million riverside V&A Museum of Design.
David Hunter, an international property consultant and former managing director of Aberdeen Property Investors, a £6.5 billion fund under Aberdeen Asset Managers, will sit on DDL's main board, chaired by Lesley Knox. He will also oversee the building sub-committee that will liaise with contractors BAM on the three-year construction programme.
Glasgow-born Hunter, who has developed major commercial developments such as West London's Chiswick Park, told the Sunday Herald that he was "proud and privileged" to be involved in a "sensational, once-in-a-lifetime" project like the new V&A, designed by the Japanese architect Kengo Kuma.
Originally priced at £45m, the costs of the project, expected to be completed in June 2018, were controversially increased to £80m following detailed negotiations with the contractors.
Hunter, whose post will be unpaid, said: "There were some genuine surprises along the way that led to the higher figure, but the price we now have is the best it can be. It is a realistic figure with a normal 'cushion' for contingencies, and we are where we are."
He added: "Like the rest of us I've seen public sector projects that haven't gone as expected, but before taking on this post I satisfied myself that the project was well-founded and well-led, that I was signing up to something where I could add value, and there was a team in place could deliver the project to budget and on time."
Hunter said he was satisfied that the project would not be subject to the kind of mid-contract design changes that notoriously led to runaway cost escalation on the Scottish Parliament building between 1999 and 2004, a product, he said, of "too many people being able to come in and say 'can we have the toilets on the right rather than the left?' That won't be allowed to happen here."
Currently chairman of ICG Longbow and Custodian Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), Hunter is also director of Yatra Capital, an Indian property company overseeing investments in the UK, India and South Africa. He was President of the British Property Federation in 2004, and actively involved in the introduction of REITs to the UK. He was also inaugural Chairman of the Scottish Property Federation.
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