Landmark Scottish £1bn development centrepiece hotel sold
The hotel is situated in the new St James Square Quarter.
The hotel building from the ground. (Image: Gordon Terris) It comprises the Ribbon Building, James Craig Walk and the Quarter House. James Craig Walk is a heritage listed terrace named after the Scottish architect, dating from 1775. The newly-built Quarter House design was inspired by traditional Edinburgh architecture, interlinking with the 12-storey Ribbon Building which features 360 degree views over the city.
Schroders Capital currently manages its £3.1bn of investments in hotel businesses operated by a team of 40 people located in offices in London, Paris, Milan and Amsterdam.
READ MORE:
James Macnamara, of Schroders Capital, said: 'The addition of the W Edinburgh to our portfolio is hugely exciting, as we continue to identify top-tier hotel assets that can facilitate multiple ways to create value and offer significant long-term growth potential.
'Edinburgh is an attractive market for Schroders Capital and we look forward to working with the highly experienced and agile team at the hotel to ensure guest experience remains in line with the W brand quality and ethos.'
Ed Webb, of Nuveen, said: 'The completion of the sale of the W Edinburgh marks a considerable milestone for St James Quarter as the first transaction realises over a decade of planning and development to deliver a leading destination in the heart of Edinburgh and the completion of a vision shared by our investors.
'The hotel itself has become an iconic landmark within the city centre whilst also providing a best-in-class offering worthy of Edinburgh's status as a global tourist destination and recognised by being awarded Scottish hotel of the year 2025.'
Schroders Capital and its clients were advised by CMS and Carey Olsen. Nuveen Real Estate was advised by Savills and Eastdil Secured, Herbert Smith Freehills and CMS, and EY.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Scotsman
20 minutes ago
- Scotsman
How McAllan can tackle our housing emergency
The new Housing Secretary needs to put in place a ten-year plan to sort problems Sign up to our Scotsman Money newsletter, covering all you need to know to help manage your money. Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... New Housing Secretary Mairi McAllan has had a busy first month and has announced she is working on a plan to address Scotland's housing emergency which she will announce when Holyrood returns in the autumn. Given that housing charity Shelter Scotland recently named John Swinney's legislative agenda a 'Programme for Homelessness' it is clear that the Scottish Government must produce some positive and effective policies. More housebuilding is required, easier and quicker planning regulations, a long-term focus on addressing social housing shortages, and a much closer working relationship with the private rented sector (PRS) to both maintain existing stock and encourage greater investment. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Ms McAllan said she would act on stalled developments, which she calls an 'untapped area,' and said the Scottish Government is 'brokering' those issues with developers to 'unlock tens of thousands of houses'. David J Alexander is an expert in Scotland's rental sector These developments are stalled due to continued uncertainty over the Scottish Government's direction on the private rented sector. Proposals in the Scottish Housing Bill to introduce rent controls don't help despite proof from the Governments' own data showing this policy results in greater costs for tenants. The most recent statistics reveal that the Scottish Government's intervention in the PRS – through its Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) Scotland Act 2022 which introduced temporary rent controls – resulted in rents rising at a faster rate in two years than they had in the preceding 12. Between 2010 and 2022 average rent rises across Scotland for one, two, three and four-bedroom properties were up £138; £182; £232; and £523 respectively. In the following two years between 2022 and 2024 average rents increased by £130; £157; £230; and £333 for one, two, three and four-bedroom properties. In cash terms rents rose in two years at almost the same level that they did over the previous 12 years. These figures highlight just how destructive the Scottish Government's intervention into the PRS was between 2022 and 2024. A major outcome of this policy has been the freezing of property investment, falling housebuilding levels, with money intended to be invested in Scotland to build more properties being transferred to other parts of the UK. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad If Ms McAllan is to make an impact on the staggering levels of housing need in Scotland, then she must embrace the private rented sector. She should not interfere in the market with rent controls and should be encouraging greater investment through policies which encourage growth over the long-term through support of the PRS. Mairi McAllan 'must embrace the private rented sector' (Picture: Jeff) The new Housing Secretary needs to put in place a ten-year plan which addresses Scotland's enormous housing problems. More housebuilding, more involvement and encouragement of the PRS, more social housing and a plan that ensures there are substantially more homes available in all markets in the future. With 250,000 people on the social housing waiting list, 10,000 children in temporary housing and a private rented sector which has been experiencing unprecedented demand there is an immediate need for clarity and action. Housing policy needs the involvement of all interested parties, and a strategy that looks beyond a single electoral cycle if the housing emergency is to be tackled.
Glasgow Times
an hour ago
- Glasgow Times
'SNP government shouldn't be letting our own industry die'
They expanded into bus services and coachbuilding a century ago, in 1924, and grew to be one of the country's leading coachbuilders. Today, Alexander Dennis is a major player in the global bus industry, providing good, high-skilled manufacturing jobs across the country and exporting Scottish-built buses as far afield as Hong Kong, Malaysia, New Zealand, and the United States, with 31,000 ADL buses in service around the world, carrying 25,000 passengers every minute of each day. But this Scottish industrial success story is under threat as the ADL board now propose closing its Scottish manufacturing base and moving all production to Scarborough, citing a lack of demand from Scottish bus operators for their new electric buses. The closure of the Falkirk and Larbert factories would be a devastating blow for our country, with 400 job losses and another key Scottish industry gone. But this hasn't happened overnight – it is a direct result of the SNP government's self-defeating procurement policy that has failed to support this Scottish industry. Most of the new electric buses being bought by the likes of First Glasgow and McGill's are partially funded by Scottish Government subsidies. I recently asked the Scottish Government how many of these buses funded by the Scottish Zero Emission Bus Challenge Fund were made here in Scotland. While I knew that too often the government's procurement policy failed to bolster the domestic industry, I was shocked that less than a third of these buses were made in Scotland. Of the 523 electric buses funded through the Scottish Government subsidy scheme, more than two-thirds, 340 buses, have been manufactured overseas, with 287 buses – over half – made in China by Yutong. The reality is that while the Scottish Government has failed to support Alexander Dennis, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has bought over 160 Alexander Dennis electric buses to operate on the new publicly controlled Bee Network bus franchise. If the Mayor of Greater Manchester can buy Scottish buses, why can't the First Minister? The Scottish Government's public procurement policy is not fit for purpose as, unlike in every other part of the UK, it completely disregards the 'social value' that is created in the local area. They are asleep at the wheel while other countries take increasingly assertive measures to develop their industrial champions. The Scottish electric bus scheme is weighted primarily towards financial cost (40%) with 'wider community and decarbonisation benefit' – including job creation – receiving only a 10% weighting. Chinese firms like Yutong exploit lower labour costs and weaker employment rights, allowing them to substantially undercut Alexander Dennis on price. While the process did include criteria for job creation and wider community benefits, the weighting of just 10% was far too low to counterbalance the cost advantages of overseas suppliers. As a result, the Scottish Government effectively prioritised the cheapest bids, regardless of where the resulting buses were made or the domestic economic benefits they could generate. It's amazing that Alexander Dennis won any contracts at all, given how the government's scheme was so unfairly rigged against its own industrial base. This senseless and damaging procurement policy must urgently be reformed to unashamedly support critical manufacturers in Scotland by prioritising wider social value considerations over financial cost, which domestic firms would be better placed to meet, rather than the perverse situation where Scottish taxpayers are subsidising foreign competitors putting hundreds of our own workers out of a job. When the government buys a bus from Alexander Dennis, it doesn't just support that business. For every job in bus manufacturing, it is estimated that there is a multiplier effect of three to four jobs in the wider supply chain. The negative impact is already being seen. A major supplier to Alexander Dennis, Greenfold Systems in Dunfermline, has made 80 workers redundant after a key contract between the two firms was withdrawn. The lack of social value weighting and understanding of the multiplier effect goes beyond procuring new buses. Earlier this year, the Scottish Government announced that the new fleet of Loch-class electric ferries for Caledonian MacBrayne would be built by Remontowa in Gdańsk, Poland. The Scottish Government-owned Ferguson Marine in Port Glasgow lost out on the contract, meaning the only thing keeping the lights on at that site is subcontract work for Type 26 Frigates from BAE Systems. The decision to award Remontowa the contract was based upon a weighting of 65% technical and 35% financial. At no stage was social value considered – the jobs that would have come from the contract or the positive economic boost to the west of Scotland. If Scotland is to reindustrialise, the Scottish Government must urgently embrace a more assertive, ambitious, and coordinated approach to industrial policy that is geared towards supporting Scotland's industrial champions, not foreign competitors. With Alexander Dennis recently extending the consultation on closure, it's still not too late; every avenue should be exhausted to safeguard jobs and save this crown jewel of Scottish industry.
The Herald Scotland
an hour ago
- The Herald Scotland
So you want progressive taxes, SNP? Fine: start with a land tax
Stories about wealthy people fleeing to avoid taxes are scarcely a novelty. Some of Scotland's most feted thespians and entrepreneurs have been following that route for decades. The others seem to have survived and feel no envy for the departed brethren, boring each other in sun-kissed places. The 'scare story' keeps running, however, as a deterrent to any government initiatives which might inconvenience the greediest. Never mind that it was Brexit which prompted more such departures than anything else. According to the Tax Justice Network, an average of 30 press articles a day appeared about 'the non-existent millionaire exodus in 2024', fed by lobbyists hired to promote the fiction. Read more by Brian Wilson In fact, many wealthy people want to do the right thing, particularly if they have acquired that status by creating businesses and employment to match. A fractional increase in taxation is not going to send them scurrying for their passports. As entrepreneurs, they are likely to be more concerned about the impact of business taxes than personal ones. The old statistic which gave rise to a theatre company, when seven per cent of the people owned 84 per cent of the wealth, is seriously in need of updating. Now, the richest one per cent own more wealth than the bottom 70 per cent while, according to Oxfam, billionaires pay 'effective tax rates close to 0.3 per cent of their wealth'. It's a pretty compelling case for starting to redress that gross imbalance while also contributing a few billion to the public finances, but it won't happen overnight or by grand announcement. Putting in place new structures which would be fair and effective, without unintended consequences, will be extremely complicated and take time, in the teeth of fierce resistance. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be embarked upon. Where better to start than in Scotland, which should be looking creatively at its own revenue options, beyond ritual moans about not being sent enough money or by raising income tax rates for people who are not at all wealthy. The number caught in Scotland-only higher tax rates has almost doubled in three years to over 700,000 and that particular well is running dry. People don't need private jets to escape a 48 per cent rate of income tax. The Scottish Affairs Select Committee at Westminster delivered a report this week which said the Barnett Formula is working well for Scotland and also that the Scottish Government should have more borrowing powers. I endorse both conclusions, but we can surely be more progressive than that? As one would expect, the SNP's contribution to the committee's work was based on their constitutional objective under the guise of Full Fiscal Economy, which nobody – including themselves – takes seriously. They just feel obliged to keep making that noise while, in real life, taking the money Barnett delivers, even more generously since the election of a Labour government. The area in which a radical Scottish Government could do immediate work is by replacing the council tax which is a regressive system introduced by the Tories in 1991 and causes no inconvenience whatsoever to the wealthiest in the land, particularly if their wealth is related to that very commodity – land. Eight years ago, SNP ministers asked for a report from their own Land Commission on the option of a Land Value Tax. In theory, this should be attractive to them because it plays into other stated objectives on which, otherwise, nothing is happening – land reform through greater diversity of ownership, land being freed up for housing, derelict land being brought into use, and so on. The Land Commission spelt out potential benefits of a Land Value Tax. 'Aside from raising revenue, one of the main theoretical benefits of land value taxation is that it should encourage land to be used more productively. This is because it is based on the value of land in its optimum use as opposed to its actual use. 'Taxing land value should also be an efficient approach to taxation because the supply of land is relatively fixed so taxing it should not affect supply. Whereas income taxes reduce incentives to work and corporation taxes reduce incentives to invest, taxing the value of land should not affect the amount of land available'. Funding arrangements for the Scottish Parliament are again under review (Image: Newsquest) For good measure: 'Taxing land is also attractive for administrative reasons because land cannot be moved so land value taxes should be difficult to avoid or evade.' At the end of all that, one wondered: 'What is there not to like?'. To be fair, the Commission added the caveat: 'The research did not find unequivocal evidence that proves they definitely deliver the various benefits often claimed of them. Any further steps toward implementation must therefore be taken with caution.' That was the get-out clause which the Scottish Government gratefully accepted. Whereas there is 'unequivocal evidence' that the existing system is deeply regressive, leaves large areas of Scotland untaxed and local government near bankrupt, there is no 'unequivocal evidence' that trying something else might produce better results. So after 18 years of SNP government, the Tory solution of 1991 – based on not offending the wealthy – remains undisturbed. Under the devolution settlement, the Scottish Government could only apply radical reform to funding councils rather than to national taxation. But it would be a start which would signal a genuine commitment to redistribution. And maybe if they tried it, working closely with the UK Government, it could become not just the most radical and interesting outcome Holyrood has ever delivered, but also a stepping-stone towards delivering a fairer tax system for the whole country. Or is it easier just to shout 'wealth tax' while avoiding even the smallest advance towards that objective? Brian Wilson is a former Labour Party politician. He was MP for Cunninghame North from 1987 until 2005 and served as a Minister of State from 1997 to 2003.
