Redrawn plans for the demolition of the Ironworks and the construction of a £30 million hotel have been recommended for approval by Highland Council, reports The Inverness Courier.
image: Ironworks, Inverness by Kenneth Allen, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
…some welcomed the investment while others mourned the loss…
The Inverness Courier writes:
Real estate investment firm Bricks Group have been trying for years without success to redevelop the Ironworks live music venue site on Academy Street as a Courtyard By Marriott hotel.
Bricks claimed the Courtyard By Marriott Hotel would accommodate up to 100,000 visitors a year, providing a major boost for Academy Street which would also create 90 construction jobs for a two-year period, followed by 65 full-time hotel jobs.
The Courtyard would be a multi storey 155 bedroom hotel with café/bar and restaurant; and a gym at first floor level for guests use as well as a 480 square metre commercial gym facing onto Rose Street.
But the proposals initially received a generally mixed reception as some welcomed the investment while others mourned the loss of the city’s premier music venue and it was refused planning permission in December 2020.
Councillors slated the original plans as unattractive and out of keeping with its surroundings while the council’s Historic Environment Team said the design was “monolithic”, “featureless” and “devoid of architectural quality.”
That sparked a redrawn application…
Now many of the formal objections from the council team holding up the process have been overcome leading to the recommendation for approval on conditions but it will be down to councillors to have the final say…
Historic Environment Scotland:
“Our interest in this consultation is the potential for the proposals to affect the setting of the category ‘A’ listed Old High Church which comprises a late 16th century tower and church dating to 1769-72, with later additions … We have no comments to make in terms of our interest from a Scheduled Monuments perspective in relation to the site of the Dominican friary and effigy of a knight on Friars’ Street.”
