PLANS for a £95 million multi-use residential development in Glasgow’s Calton area with a 2.5-acre park and an arts centre have been submitted.
Developer Glasgow Enlightenment has lodged a planning application with Glasgow City Council for Collegelands Park, following a three-month community consultation period.
Images of how the new development will look have also been released. Along with two new student accommodation blocks comprising a total of 591 beds, there will be 147 rented apartments and a new arts centre featuring sliding glass walls opening out to a courtyard. A park with meadows, orchards and seating will provide a place for local people to meet up, relax and exercise.
The neighbourhood will be built on the last gap site of the Collegelands development, which was launched more than 20 years ago to help regenerate the Calton area, attracting new residents and creating local jobs.
Paul O’Donnell of Glasgow Enlightenment said, “It’s great to share the final vision for Collegelands Park and I’d like to thank everyone who came along to our consultation meetings and gave us their views on how the development could best serve the local community. We have lowered the heights of the buildings to address concerns around visual impact and have taken on board the feedback on how the park should look from local residents and community groups.
“We are very excited about plans for the development, which will deliver new green space, cultural activities and rented accommodation for the local community, along with much needed homes for students in Glasgow, which has the largest shortage of purpose-built student accommodation in the UK. It will offer a real opportunity for students to develop lasting ties with the city and become part of the local community.”
At the heart of the development will be the new arts facility being built by charity Dream Machine Productions. Dream Machine has for the last nine years operated a community hub with music and art studios, a café, galleries and music venues in London Road.
The new venue at Collegelands Park will offer hireable event space, a community lounge and a café, opening out to the courtyard with ‘Happy to Chat’ benches, free Wi-Fi, charging points and spaces that encourage outdoor remote working.
Dream Machine founder Matt Lygate added, “We have been renting our present space for a long time but it will be amazing to have our own purpose-built hub where we can host meetup groups, provide space for community events, put on a year round public relaxation programme and become a home for many other community projects bringing value to us all. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to create an incredible venue, which will make a real difference to the lives of the people in the Calton area. This facility is key to fostering the incredible talent of people in this part of Glasgow – the local people, students who are living here while they are studying, artists and musicians.”
The Collegelands regeneration project was launched in 2004 in a bid to bring new homes and opportunities to the Calton area of the city. Today, Collegelands is described as one of Scotland’s most successful mixed-use developments with a thriving community, a new Moxy hotel, offices, homes and shops.
Graeme Bone of Glasgow Enlightenment added, “It will be great to see the new park and the arts facility being built at Collegelands Park, a really fitting legacy for all the hard work that has been done over the past 20 years to develop this vibrant new neighbourhood and green space in the city.”
