August 15 2024

A new planning application to deliver a mixed residential development at the College Goodsyard site east of Glasgow city centre is being brought forward following its sale by build-to-rent (BTR) developer Get Living.

New owners Galliard Apsley Partnership, a collaboration between Galliard Homes and Apsley House Capital, will largely adhere to existing plans for hundreds of residential apartments, including 560 build-to-rent apartments, around 1,000 student beds and 260 co-living properties on the 7.5-acre site.

In a consultation statement, Galliard Apsley wrote: “The site already benefits from planning permission (application reference 21/03795/FUL) for a mixed-use scheme for residential, student accommodation and commercial space, spread over seven blocks. “Secured by BTR operator, Get Living, this permission was achieved in February 2023, with the scheme put on hold in March 2023 due to financial challenges impacting the company.”

Retaining the services of Stallan-Brand, with New Practice leading community consultations, the new owners will tweak their approved plans to erect an intergenerational community on the inner city site, now known as College Gardens. This will include rebuilding a set of railway arches to serve as a distinct entrance to the development from Bell Street. The initial consultation is open for comment until 30 August with construction potentially getting underway in the fourth quarter of 2025.

13 Comments

#1 Posted by The Athenian on 15 Aug 2024 at 14:32 PM

If the Commonwealth Games is coming in 2026, this would be a nice site to see fast-tracked as an athletes village prior to going in to legacy mode...

#2 Posted by George on 15 Aug 2024 at 16:12 PM

Cunning plan, if you use a huge big word like intergenerational then hopefully noone will notice how bland these designs are.
Same boring blocks that are appearing anywhere in Glasgow, no balconies for some reason when it provides fresh air, outdoor space and improves the plain look.
I do despair of Glasgow, never thought I would literally watch it go to the dogs so quickly...

#3 Posted by Roddy_ on 15 Aug 2024 at 18:40 PM

According to the drawings, the footbridge connecting north over the railway line to Collegelands is now merely 'notional'. This was tagged as a City Deal project in the past but whether funds were actually allocated is another matter. This amid the background of the High St station upgrade being shelved. This does not bode well for the future trajectory of the site.
It is hard to escape the impression from the forms and materiality that this is merely copying the paradigm of the disastrous Colleglands.
Supposedly this will be a detailed application. There is much design development required not least to prove that the linear park won't be in shadow for the majority of daylight hours.

#4 Posted by Lovely on 16 Aug 2024 at 12:05 PM

Extrapolating out a little bit this development is very much the 'blue pill' in it's infancy.

If you strip out all the warm words and pleasant tonality added to these brutal towers then this is a totally dystopian creation where nobody will own anything and everything will be communal and community etc but not in a good way.

This stuff is starting to seem a lot like communism but without any of the redeeming features.

#5 Posted by Philip on 16 Aug 2024 at 16:38 PM

#4 Please elaborate on the redeeming features of communism...

#6 Posted by Charlie_ on 17 Aug 2024 at 06:45 AM

@Philip - cheap housing

#7 Posted by Lovely on 17 Aug 2024 at 14:45 PM

Dear Philip, I won't be elaborating on that here as I’m not advocating for communism and it’s likely if I was to list the responses needed it would create an emotional pile on due to extreme lack of debating skills prevalent these days, which would be a bit inappropriate on an architecture forum so will need to ask you to do your own research on this occasion Thank you for your interest anyway.

#8 Posted by Lovely on 17 Aug 2024 at 14:46 PM

PS- Capitalism has also completely failed meantime and this development is a good example of that.

#9 Posted by Comrade O'Brien on 18 Aug 2024 at 15:17 PM

Nr.6 Charlie / a redeeming feature of communism was cheap housing?

Tell that to the millions of peoples of Poland, former East Germany, former Czechoslovakia, Hungary, former Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Ukraine and the USSR and its numerous republics and i will bet you, at a push, only 0.00001% of them will have a good word to say about the soviet communist era. That's a reality.

But then again, its not as easy or as glib a thing to say as cheap housing, is it?

#10 Posted by Charlie_ on 19 Aug 2024 at 16:05 PM

#4 this is like communist housing without any of the redeeming features
#5 like what?
#6 it was cheap (as in this won't even be that)
#9 people were repressed in czechoslovakia! Stalin!
#10 no way? I'll be sure to look that up

#11 Posted by Lovely on 19 Aug 2024 at 21:27 PM

My point proven very neatly thank you.

#12 Posted by Lovely on 19 Aug 2024 at 21:31 PM

PS- Yugoslavia was not in the Soviet-Stalinist block, an common error. Many people there own their own homes debt free to this day but not for long am sure.

#13 Posted by Mark on 21 Aug 2024 at 09:18 AM

Fascinating how the comments on this news piece have leapt rapidly from a failed Build to Rent scheme in Glasgow to the failings of the Communist system!

Anyhow, I wonder whether the reference to "the scheme [being] put on hold in March 2023 due to financial challenges impacting the company” is shorthand for the developer being scared off by the Scottish Government's rent control proposals?

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