Charing Cross Gateway motors through planning
December 18 2024
A towering car-free residential project at Charing Cross Gateway has been given the go-ahead within metres of the busiest road in Scotland.
City planners have given the green light to Michael Laird Architects and CXG for a 730,000sq/ft complex spanning Elmbank Gardens and Tay House on Bath Street, constituting 450 apartments, 14,000sq/m of office space, 750 student flats and a health centre.
Flanking the city centre portion of the M8, opposite the Mitchell Library, the high-rise vision will mark the western edge of Glasgow city centre, restoring cohesion to the frayed edges of Bath Street and Sauchiehall Street and urbanise the road corridor.
Key to this approach will be the removal of a concrete bridge owned by Glasgow City Council. This 'plinth' will be demolished to restore north-south views and clear the way for a future landscaped 'cap', proposed separately.
As part of these efforts, LDA Design proposes to tame the concrete landscape with gardens and pedestrian routes linking Charing Cross Station.
A joint dilapidation survey of the M8 anchor wall must be carried out with Transport Scotland before any piling or basement excavation within 20m of the motorway.
Long-held dreams of introducing a garden to the air space above the M8 could transform the area
New vistas would be opened up by removing an 'office plinth' appendage to Tay House
Residents and pedestrians will be funnelled into the waiting mouth of Charing Cross Station
Students in the south block will have access to a roof terrace
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16 Comments
#1 Posted by David on 18 Dec 2024 at 12:03 PM
Superb. This is a game changer if it actually happens. I for one will be eagerly looking forward to seeing how the plan to remove the existingbuilding / bridge over the motorway!
#2 Posted by EM0 on 18 Dec 2024 at 12:29 PM
Brilliant scheme, it is a pity that given the amount of work that will go on around the motorway that they cannot at least implement some of the motorway cap at the same time!
#3 Posted by town planner on 18 Dec 2024 at 12:59 PM
Sounds like it still has a few hurdles with TS, and probably funders (?) however if this and other adjacent schemes are realised without too much value engineering in between then could look great.
Fingers crossed a new greenspace/M8 cap also to come, which taken together will create a much better setting for the Mitchell library.
Fingers crossed a new greenspace/M8 cap also to come, which taken together will create a much better setting for the Mitchell library.
#4 Posted by Fat Bloke on Tour on 18 Dec 2024 at 13:28 PM
Car free angle -- cheap-skating by the developer using the current favourite of green washing.
450 households relying on public transport and shank's pony -- not a good look that will hold the development back. What people will do to keep the price of land artificially high at the expense of the gap sites all around their cathedral in the desert.
Big scheme -- probably too big for today's Glesga.
Andy Burnham on the other hand would be on to the next phase by now.
The price the city is paying for Holyrood.
450 households relying on public transport and shank's pony -- not a good look that will hold the development back. What people will do to keep the price of land artificially high at the expense of the gap sites all around their cathedral in the desert.
Big scheme -- probably too big for today's Glesga.
Andy Burnham on the other hand would be on to the next phase by now.
The price the city is paying for Holyrood.
#5 Posted by Yusuf on 18 Dec 2024 at 15:48 PM
'Where do the children play?'
#6 Posted by Pat Lally on 18 Dec 2024 at 16:06 PM
Get it built.
#7 Posted by Roddy_ on 18 Dec 2024 at 17:29 PM
A scheme of this scale was unlikely to have ever been refused and worth noting that this is only PPP with the drawings in the application pack conveying intent only. The dreamhaze visualisations are conjectural until detailed applications are brought forward. Having said that the designers may wish to turn their attention to the way their scheme turns the corner from Sauchiehal St onto Newton St (3rd image). The set back here is a sop to the presence of Burnet's masterpiece - the Mansions (the new build overpowering the scale and articulation of same). I think it shows just what you can get away with- even in a Conservation Area (the site is half in- half out of the CA boundary).
I think there is definitely a place for talls in the right place but this obliterates the key skyline views to the Mansions on the appaoches from the west. It will be yet another frog boiling moment for the CA as it is nibbled away bit by bit and we lose those delicate and memorable roofline vistas. You might argue that the removal of Tay House over the motorway makes up for this loss and I am sympathetic to that argument. I would simply say that - can't we have both?
I think there is definitely a place for talls in the right place but this obliterates the key skyline views to the Mansions on the appaoches from the west. It will be yet another frog boiling moment for the CA as it is nibbled away bit by bit and we lose those delicate and memorable roofline vistas. You might argue that the removal of Tay House over the motorway makes up for this loss and I am sympathetic to that argument. I would simply say that - can't we have both?
#8 Posted by Lost on 18 Dec 2024 at 17:39 PM
#4 What do you believe in?
#9 Posted by Jimbob Tanktop on 18 Dec 2024 at 19:00 PM
#8 The whinnying sound of adolescent contrarianism that can only be made from a particular trumpet.
#10 Posted by Graeme McCormick on 18 Dec 2024 at 21:04 PM
Hope Network Rail bring the station into the 21st century with escalators or fast lifts and enclosed platforms.
#11 Posted by Fat Bloke on Tour on 19 Dec 2024 at 12:40 PM
Belief system -- motherhood and apple pie ...
Next.
Next.
#12 Posted by Big Delicious on 19 Dec 2024 at 16:45 PM
"450 apartments, 14,000sq/m of office space, 750 student flats and a health centre."
And... car free?
A bazillion people are expected to live / work / visit here and nobody can drive to it?
I'm all for reduction in car use and all that, but is it realistic to expect all these people to just not own a car? There's gonna be hundreds of people just fighting for street parking there? Anyone who's lived in an area where that is happening knows it's a complete nightmare. I moved away from Shawlands years ago because every street was rammed with cars. If you got back after 6pm you had to park in Argentina and walk home
Other countries are putting in multi-storey basement car parking, we're pretending it's some eco crusade to make life as inconvenient as possible to save a developer money
And... car free?
A bazillion people are expected to live / work / visit here and nobody can drive to it?
I'm all for reduction in car use and all that, but is it realistic to expect all these people to just not own a car? There's gonna be hundreds of people just fighting for street parking there? Anyone who's lived in an area where that is happening knows it's a complete nightmare. I moved away from Shawlands years ago because every street was rammed with cars. If you got back after 6pm you had to park in Argentina and walk home
Other countries are putting in multi-storey basement car parking, we're pretending it's some eco crusade to make life as inconvenient as possible to save a developer money
#13 Posted by Spike on 19 Dec 2024 at 19:48 PM
Impressive, hope it gets built as shown
#14 Posted by Mark on 19 Dec 2024 at 22:34 PM
#9 - "The whinnying sound of adolescent contrarianism" - superb, I'm jotting that down as ammunition to deploy in future arguments.
#4 & 12 - Agree that "car free" in the context of a densely-packed city centre development like this is greenwashing. Perhaps the Section 75 calculation should take into account the £multi-million saving relative to providing a couple of levels of underground parking.
On another point, good luck with demolishing the M8 overbridge without Glasgow's road system grinding to a total halt for a couple of weeks.
#4 & 12 - Agree that "car free" in the context of a densely-packed city centre development like this is greenwashing. Perhaps the Section 75 calculation should take into account the £multi-million saving relative to providing a couple of levels of underground parking.
On another point, good luck with demolishing the M8 overbridge without Glasgow's road system grinding to a total halt for a couple of weeks.
#15 Posted by Jake Janobs on 20 Dec 2024 at 11:04 AM
#10 - too right, the developers should be required to upgrade the train station, it is a sketchy dump at the moment. As for car parking, how much scope is there on that site, with the motorway on one side and railway on another? There's a multi-storey just next to it, they should annexe that.
#16 Posted by Sven on 20 Dec 2024 at 13:51 PM
@12, I agree with the car sue. It’s next to a motorway, it’s in a poor location for commuters to get to as no one is going to park then get several trains to Charing Cross.
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