Student flats to bring Glasgow's Merchant City 'back to life', say developers

New proposals to help regenerate and “bring back to life” a popular area of Glasgow’s Merchant City have been submitted to the city council for determination.

Dominus Glasgow Ltd, which specialises in hotels as well as student accommodation, had previously been granted permission to develop a hotel at the corner of Osborne Street and Old Wynd in October 2020.

They then submitted a new application to build student accommodation on the vacant site instead last year.

Now the applicant is considering its options to implement planning permission for the original hotel and has submitted a Section 42 application to the council to ask for “reasonable flexibility” for construction work.

Proposals for the student block are still undergoing determination and can be viewed on Glasgow City Council’s website.

They include a total of 211 rooms proposed across 14 storeys and would be made up of 145 studio flats and 66 cluster flats.

When submitting the plans for the student flats, the developer had said that the application would play an “important role” in contributing to the ongoing regeneration of the area and provide much needed student accommodation, help repopulate the area and bring the long-term vacant site back into “active and productive use.”

As part of their planning statement they said: “The site is well located to meet the need for homes for students in Glasgow, situated in close proximity to multiple higher education institutions.

“Notwithstanding, the character of the surrounding area is undergoing significant redevelopment and change, with several major planning applications having been approved, or submitted pending determination, within recent years.

“Furthermore, the regeneration of the area is supported in several Glasgow City Council master planning documents, including the Glasgow City Centre Living Strategy (2019), the Glasgow City Centre Recovery Plan (2022), A Vision and Plan for the Golden Z (2023) and the City Centre Strategy (2023).

“It is considered that development of the application site can complement and enhance the townscape of the surrounding area, assisting with the comprehensive regeneration of Trongate South and bringing this long-term vacant gap site back into productive use.”

The latest planning application will be determined by the council’s planning department in due course.