Live music venue set to make way for hotel and student housing
The only live music venue in Edinburgh’s Leith area is set to be demolished to make way for a student housing and hotel development.
Leith Depot, which hosts gigs almost every night of the week, is one of several businesses expected to be affected by a multi-million pound project.
The Drum Property Group, which former Hibernian FC managing director Fife Hyland is a director of, says it will “revitalise an important part of the city.”
A huge swathe of land at Stead’s Place was snapped up last year by the Drum Property Group, which wants to replace existing buildings with a “mixed-use development.”
Leith Depot, which also operates as a bar and restaurant, opened less than three years ago on the site of a bar which had the worst record for police call-outs in the city, but has become one of its most thriving live music venues.
The Drum Property Group is set to snap up an another artists’ hub, St Margaret’s House, in the Meadowbank area, for student housing.
It says the Leith Walk development will create “a mix of affordable housing, innovative post-graduate student accommodation, hotel facilities for visitors to the city, and space for the benefit of local retailers and the community.”
It plans to join forces with Edinburgh University to create student accommodation, which it says will also “incorporate a hotel, restaurant and cafe.”
Leith Depot declined to comment on the firm’s plans.
But the developer insists units facing onto Leith Walk will be available for local businesses and community groups, with existing tenants, who include Punjabi Junction, the Leith Walk Cafe and The Bed Shop, offered the chance to return after two years.
Managing director Graeme Bone said: “Our vision is to provide welcoming, inspirational and distinctive spaces for use by local residents, post-graduate students and the wider public.
“Developing purpose-built affordable housing, retail units, a hotel and post-graduate accommodation on this conveniently located site will help alleviate housing pressures in the area and provide a boost for inward investment in Leith that will help sustain community facilities and create additional opportunities for local business, maximising the potential for additional future investment in the area.”
Morvern Cunningham, cofounder of the Leith Creative network, said: “This site is already a welcoming, inspirational and distinctive space housing a number of important community assets.”