New artist’s impressions of Marischal College unveiled

26/05/08

Exciting new images have been unveiled of Marischal College transformed into Aberdeen City Council’s new corporate headquarters.

The graphics have been produced by the Holmes Partnership – one of Scotland’s most respected architectural practices, which is designing the scheme to convert the iconic granite building.

The images show the archway to the courtyard converted into the new main entrance to the council HQ, a remodelled and re-landscaped courtyard, and an internal perspective of the proposed reception area.

A planning application has been lodged with Aberdeen City Council to convert the archway area leading into the courtyard into the HQ reception and to make a number of minor amendments to the original planning permission.

A further planning application will follow at a later date, detailing proposals to clean the building and restore the stonework to the original gleaming granite.

Aberdeen City Council leader Councillor Kate Dean said: “These new images give us the first real hints of what the finished Marischal College will look like. I’m sure they will fire the imagination of Aberdonians, who are so proud of this wonderful building and who have been so saddened by the years of neglect.

“This is not just about creating a new City Council headquarters, vitally important though that is in order to provide our staff with the quality environment from which they can deliver quality services.

“This is also about carrying out a restoration project which will give everyone in the city a Marischal College to be proud of and about creating a public building which the people of Aberdeen will take pleasure in visiting.”

Holmes Partnership's Harry Phillips said "The proposals represent the culmination of a detailed analysis of the existing Grade-A listed historic building, together with the council's requirements for an inspiring and welcoming headquarters office building.

“A key design priority has been to overcome the split layout of the building caused by the access pend which separated the north and south wings on three floor levels.

“The proposals create a grand new entrance lobby in the entrance pend, which both connects the building and at the same time provides the council with a superb public entrance on to Broad Street.

“With the possibility of more than 1,000 visitors to the new building daily, the development will transform Marischal College from a vacant and neglected structure into a vibrant and attractive civic headquarters."

The scheme involves the demolition of the Marischal College interior and its replacement by a 21st century office building, providing 17,000 square metres of modern office space on four floors for up to 1,300 city council staff.

The conversion will create parking spaces, retain all the granite elevations, and provide a new, predominantly open-plan interior of contemporary, hi-tech and sustainable design.

Contracts will be fixed-price and not the kind of open contracts which allowed the price of the Scottish Parliament to spiral.

The City Council has known for some time that the 40-year-old St Nicholas House is well beyond its planned life and offers staff and visiting citizens a poor environment.

City councillors decided in 2005 to pursue the redevelopment of Marischal College to replace St Nicholas House and several other offices that could either be sold off or have their leases terminated.

Elected members also recognised that the Marischal Project would allow St Nicholas House to be demolished to make way for high-quality new development in the Bon Accord Quarter and the creation of new public space.

The 2005 decision to breathe new life into the decaying Marischal College was taken after elected members scrutinised three options:

refurbishing St Nicholas House and maintaining all outlying offices;
building a new headquarters on a greenfield site and disposing of St Nicholas House and the other offices;
securing the future of the A-listed Marischal College by redeveloping the building and disposing of St Nicholas House and the other offices offices.

Marischal College was judged to be a best value for money, taking into account the money that would be made by disposing of – St Nicholas House, Summerhill Education Centre, Crown House, Spring Garden, Linksfield, Exchequer House, Kirkgate and Commerce Street.

Affordability was thoroughly reassessed in 2007 by the then-recently appointed Programme Director, Andrew Sproull. His report to the full council last July showed that the comparative costs for the three projects were:

Greenfield development: £80.55 million, minus the capital receipts from the income from the sale or lease of the St Nicholas site and the disposal of the other offices;
Marischal conversion: £80.47 million, minus the same income (see above);
St Nicholas House refurbishment: £62.8 million, with no office disposals and therefore zero income.

The detail of the projected income from the planned sales is being kept confidential to protect the City Council’s position when it disposes of the properties on the open market.

City Councillors also took into account:

the estimated annual savings on running costs by disposing of the expensive-to-run St Nicholas House and other offices, and moving into a super-efficient converted Marischal College;
the difficulty of finding alternative accommodation for more than 1,000 staff if St Nicholas House were to be refurbished;
the extra revenue costs which would be generated by continuing to maintain St Nicholas House and the temporary accommodation;
and the fact that the retained offices would also need to be modernised.

They also factored in the problem of finding a suitable greenfield site and the rising cost of land prices in Aberdeen.

Also key to the City Council’s decision to opt for Marischal were the non-financial advantages of the project:

preserving the world-renowned 100-year-old building;
demolishing St Nicholas House to make way for city centre renewal;
keeping a publicly accessible city centre site for the council’s HQ;
ensuring the spending power of more than 1,000 council staff stays in the heart of the city;
securing efficiencies by keeping the bulk of staff in the city centre and avoiding the huge and costly disruption which would be triggered by moving employees out of St Nicholas House to allow for refurbishment.

If you have any queries regarding this, or any other news story, please contact Aberdeen City Council on: 01224 522000.