Our appointment for this project was with a longstanding residential development client whose successful business model is to procure historic Georgian properties around the New Town of Edinburgh which have been previously converted into commercial premises, and convert them to high-end modern apartments to sell or retain as short-term holiday lets.

8 and 9 Albyn Place was our client’s largest acquisition to date, and having already undertaken 6 highly successful conversion projects in the West End of Edinburgh for the same developer in the past 3 years, our initial brief for this project was to convert these two 5-storey Category A-Listed townhouses into luxury residential accommodation for sale on completion.  As such, these historic townhouses, which were previously being used as a language school, were reverted back to their original residential use and sensitively sub-divided to form a total of 16 units.

The units offer large open plan living areas, restoring and championing the generous proportions and original decorative features typical of Georgian-Era architecture and design. All while providing modern amenities and luxury finishes which are harmonious with the existing building’s character.

As ever with the heritage properties that we work on, a well-considered design approach has been taken throughout this project to respect the historic fabric, layout and detailing of the building, whilst improving the fabric of the property in line with current building standards and regulations. The Planning Application and Listed Building Consent was approved and work began on site mid-2023.

Despite our initial brief to form residential properties intended for sale on completion, we quickly adapted to a change in our client’s business model and our designs were amended to incorporate a greater density of small short-term let holiday apartments.

Securing Planning and Listed Building Consent for 16 short-term let apartments was an extremely challenging task, however the successful outcome at Planning committee was lauded as a huge accomplishment for Block Nine’s consultancy team.  This bucked the current trend of blanket refusal for short term let applications in Central Edinburgh which has been implemented with the enforcement of ‘Airbnb Licensing’. Great care and tactful negotiation with the City of Edinburgh Planning team has led to a fantastic outcome for our client.  Work on site continued to progress smoothly with the final completion of the apart-hotel taking place in early 2025.