Rosewood plans Edinburgh hotel
New plans to transform Edinburgh’s former Royal High School into a luxury hotel have been submitted to the City of Edinburgh Council.
Rosewood Hotels and Resorts has been selected to manage the Calton Hill property. With 18 properties across 11 countries, it has extensive experience of restoring and transforming historic buildings, many of which are listed or located inside world heritage sites.
“Rosewood Edinburgh will be a prime example of Rosewood’s philosophy of A Sense of Place,” says Radha Arora, President, Rosewood Hotels & Resorts. “The former Royal High School is one of Edinburgh’s most important landmarks and we will be drawing on our experience with historic properties such as The Carlyle, Rosewood Castiglion del Bosco and Hôtel de Crillon, to ensure the heritage and history of this building is preserved and celebrated.”
Working alongside Rosewood, the fully-funded plan to invest more than £75m in restoring and converting Thomas Hamilton’s original building is led by Duddingston House Properties and Urbanist Hotels. Gareth Hoskins, the architect for the project, says the new designs respond to the comments made by heritage organisations and the public during the comprehensive consultation process earlier in the year. “We’ve listened and taken on board views from a wide range of organisations and individuals through the pre-planning process to develop a fundamentally different design for the site.”
He adds: “The design focuses around an informed restoration of the central Hamilton-designed building, repairing its decaying fabric and maintaining the strong sculptural presence of its frontage without intervention. The existing building will be entirely given over to the public areas of the new hotel allowing its spaces to be fully accessible for the first time in the building’s history.”
Oxford Economics, a company devoted to global forecasting and quantitative analysis, suggest that the economic impact of the new hotel would be significant for Edinburgh and the whole of Scotland. The project is expected to create up to 260 jobs in the hotel while supporting a further 310 roles in the supply chain and 270 in the tourism industry over the next ten years. Independent research has estimated the hotel could contribute £31.5m to Edinburgh’s GDP and £36.7m to Scotland’s economy on an annual basis.
