Quartermile is the marketing name given to the

mixed use Mixed use is a type of Real estate development, urban development, urban design, urban planning and/or a zoning classification that blends multiple Land use, uses, such as residential, commercial, cultural, institutional, or entertainment, into ...

redevelopment of the former

Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh (RIE) was established in 1729, and is the oldest voluntary hospital in Scotland. The new buildings of 1879 were claimed to be the largest voluntary hospital in the United Kingdom, and later on, the Empire."In Com ...

site, in

Lauriston Lauriston ( ) is an area of central Edinburgh, Scotland, and home to a number of significant historic buildings. It lies south of Edinburgh Castle and the Grassmarket, and north of The Meadows public park. Lauriston is the former location ...

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

. It was master-planned by architect

Foster + Partners Foster and Partners (also Foster + Partners) is a British international architecture firm with its headquarters in London, England. It was founded in 1967 by British architect and designer Norman Foster. The firm has been involved in the design ...

and takes its name from the fact it is a quarter mile (400 m) from Edinburgh Castle and the Royal Mile and measures a quarter mile from corner to corner. It was built by Edinburgh developer Qmile Group, a

holding company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the Security (finance), securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own Share ...

. The scheme comprises a mixture of new build

apartment An apartment (American English, Canadian English), flat (British English, Indian English, South African English), tenement (Scots English), or unit (Australian English) is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that ...

s, apartments converted from existing nineteenth-century hospital buildings, new build

office An office is a space where the employees of an organization perform Business administration, administrative Work (human activity), work in order to support and realize the various goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a po ...

s, housing, and

retail Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is the sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholes ...

leisure Leisure (, ) has often been defined as a quality of experience or as free time. Free time is time spent away from business, Employment, work, job hunting, Housekeeping, domestic chores, and education, as well as necessary activities such as ...

uses. Completed in 2018 after more than a decade of construction, it contains 1,050 apartments, of office space, of retail and leisure space and seven-acres of open landscape.

Design

The former site of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh was sold in 2001 by Lothian University Hospitals NHS Trust (subsequently

NHS Lothian NHS Lothian is one of the 14 regions of NHS Scotland. It provides healthcare services in the City of Edinburgh (council area), City of Edinburgh, East Lothian, Midlothian and West Lothian council areas. Its headquarters are at Mainpoint 102 West ...

), whereupon

Foster and Partners Foster and Partners (also Foster + Partners) is a British international architecture firm with its headquarters in London, England. It was founded in 1967 by British architect and designer Norman Foster. The firm has been involved in the desig ...

were retained as the architects for new structures whilst plans for the

David Bryce David Bryce Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, FRSE FRIBA Royal Scottish Academy, RSA (3 April 1803 – 7 May 1876) was a Scotland, Scottish architect. Life Bryce was born at 5 South College Street in Edinburgh, the son of David B ...

-designed former hospital buildings were devised by Comprehensive Design Architects (CDA). The project overlooks and is connected to The Meadows, a large public open space in central Edinburgh.

Tenants

Quartermile’s occupiers include travel company Skyscanner, hardware and software solutions supplier

Cirrus Logic Cirrus Logic Inc. is an American fabless semiconductor company, fabless semiconductor supplier that specializes in analog, mixed-signal, and audio Digital signal processor, DSP integrated circuits (ICs). Since 1998, the company's headquarters have ...

, and legal firms Morton Fraser and Maclay Murray & Spens. In 2017 all commercial units were fully sold or let. The Quartermile development also houses the Edinburgh Futures Institute, which is the University of Edinburgh’s interdisciplinary hub.

History

The former surgical building was at one stage intended to become a 5 star

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a re ...

, designed by Richard Murphy architects, but no operator was found to run the hotel, this was then intended for conversion to apartments. Richard Murphy architects were at that stage still however involved with the site and were considering designing affordable housing for the site. The site was sold by the Lothian University Hospitals Trust in 2001 to a joint venture between

Bank of Scotland The Bank of Scotland plc (Scottish Gaelic: ''Banca na h-Alba'') is a commercial bank, commercial and clearing (finance), clearing bank based in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is part of the Lloyds Banking Group. The bank was established by the Par ...

Taylor Woodrow Taylor Woodrow was one of the largest housebuilding and general construction companies in Britain. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index until its merger with rival housebuilder George Wimpey ...

and Kilmartin Property Group for around , having previously been used for the

. Gladedale Capital bought out Taylor Woodrow’s 50 per cent stake in 2005, while Kilmartin Property Group went into

administration Administration may refer to: Management of organizations * Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal: the process of dealing with or controlling things or people. ** Administrative assistant, traditionally known as a se ...

in 2010. The development was sold by

Lloyds Banking Group Lloyds Banking Group plc is a British financial institution formed through the acquisition of HBOS by Lloyds TSB in 2009. It is one of the UK's largest financial services organisations, with 30 million customers and 65,000 employees. Lloyds B ...

to property investor Moorfield in September 2013. By 2018, Qmile was the sole owner. Suggestions by the

International Council on Monuments and Sites The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS; ) is a professional association that works for the conservation and protection of cultural heritage places around the world. Now headquartered in Charenton-le-Pont, France, ICOMOS was fou ...

that the impact of the development could cause Edinburgh to lose its

World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

status were vigorously denied by the

City of Edinburgh Council The City of Edinburgh Council (Scottish Gaelic: ''Comhairle Baile Dhùn Èideann'') is the local government authority covering the City of Edinburgh council area. Almost half of the council area is the built-up area of Edinburgh, capital of Sco ...

. The commercial office building, Quartermile One, won the Scottish Regional Award for Best Commercial Space in the British Council for Offices Awards in 2008.

References

External links

*
Edinburgh Architecture page about Quartermile
{{coord, 55, 56, 39.08, N, 3, 11, 39.91, W, display=title Areas of Edinburgh Economy of Edinburgh Buildings and structures under construction in the United Kingdom