Demolition progresses on Queen Street eyesore
March 15 2013
The destruction heralds the imminent construction of a £70m office block designed by Cooper Cromar which will see 143,000sq/ft of offices (plus 20,000sq/ft of ground floor retail) stacked over eight floors on the prominent corner plot opposite the Gallery of Modern Art.
BAM Construct executive director John Burke said: "As someone who works in Glasgow, I have walked past this building countless times and it is amazingly satisfying to see the final concrete panels being removed and to know building work will soon be starting to transform this unappealing building into something our city can really be proud of.”
110 Queen Street is the third largest office block proposed for the city behind Scottish Power’s plan for a 220,000sq/ft HQ and Abstract’s speculative 170,000sq/ft scheme directly opposite on St Vincent Street.
Simultaneous demolition work is also currently taking place on the site of the Odeon for another 143,000sq/ft office block.
Work on the Queen Street build is expected to commence in August.
4 Comments
#2 Posted by DDull...... on 16 Mar 2013 at 01:24 AM
The replacement scheme will be even more of an overbearing eyesore.
#3 Posted by kevin toner on 18 Mar 2013 at 10:28 AM
The ugly side of redevelopment: a jobs creation venture at the expense of what could have been an easy conservation job: leading to a genuine jobs-creation equivalent based on a recession; not falsely a building boom such as that occurring on the west fringe of the Queen Street Stn/ Buchanan Galleries superblock, i.e. that which hasn’t stopped since it began, strangely at the start of the recession in mid/late 2008.
The cited Odeon redevelopment as part of the latter phenomenon is now also underway and on show (photo opportunities passing quickly as it’ll be an equally quick demolition job). This is probably a justifiable redevelopment though unless as we're not desperately needed another cinema.
The unjustifiable Queen Street redevelopment simply replaces a non-masterpiece with a less ingenious equivalent.
The concurrent Odeon redevelopment in contrast will yield an ‘enhancement’ to the Conservation Area, by replacing something which is out of ‘character’ and that’s not desirable to ‘preserve’: proper CA thinking for a change – well done there GCC’s DRS: Striking the iron while it’s hot, big time!
I'm surprised that the architect's design for the Queen St redevelopment doesn't build on the success of its adjacent GPO facade-retention development. You could swear it was two architects worlds apart between these two blocks, but why do this here, there's nothing to be ashamed of in being chosen to redevelop two blocks beside each other at once? So what's going on there really - too much lolly for one design team over another: i.e. when team work doesn't work!
Unproofed & must dash!
The cited Odeon redevelopment as part of the latter phenomenon is now also underway and on show (photo opportunities passing quickly as it’ll be an equally quick demolition job). This is probably a justifiable redevelopment though unless as we're not desperately needed another cinema.
The unjustifiable Queen Street redevelopment simply replaces a non-masterpiece with a less ingenious equivalent.
The concurrent Odeon redevelopment in contrast will yield an ‘enhancement’ to the Conservation Area, by replacing something which is out of ‘character’ and that’s not desirable to ‘preserve’: proper CA thinking for a change – well done there GCC’s DRS: Striking the iron while it’s hot, big time!
I'm surprised that the architect's design for the Queen St redevelopment doesn't build on the success of its adjacent GPO facade-retention development. You could swear it was two architects worlds apart between these two blocks, but why do this here, there's nothing to be ashamed of in being chosen to redevelop two blocks beside each other at once? So what's going on there really - too much lolly for one design team over another: i.e. when team work doesn't work!
Unproofed & must dash!
#4 Posted by Phillis Stein on 3 Apr 2013 at 17:25 PM
Shouldn't this article be headed
"Construction Begins on Queen Street Eyesore"
"Construction Begins on Queen Street Eyesore"
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As someone else who works in Glasgow I have walked past this building countless times and it is amazingly sad to see the final concrete panels being removed and to know building work will soon be starting to transform this really rather interesting post-war building into something wholly generic and crass.