Life of luxury awaits as care provider plots second home

Published on Thursday 16 April 2009 09:48

A LUXURY care home provider is planning its second multi-million pound venture in the Capital – as it prepares to open the doors of its first facility.

Dow Investments originally got planning consent to turn the C-listed former Morningside Nursing Home on Tipperlinn Road into a near-9000 square feet home.

It put the property on the market for offers over 1.75 million nearly a year ago in a bid to find a buyer to take its plans forward. But the housing market downturn has led to it being unable to find a buyer willing to meet the price.

Now, as it prepares to open its first "elderly luxury care residence" at the former Grange Nursing Home on Chalmers Crescent, it has set its sights on keeping the Morningside site and turning it into a second care facility.

It expects to spend up to 2 million on the project, the same price tag on the transformation of the Sciennes site into 'Renaissance at Glencairn', and will have to apply for new planning permission.

Robert Kilgour, chief executive of Dow, said: "The single house demand seems to have died now and because it is not a finished house that would be an issue (to buyers) too.

"We have had some interest. One couple had agreed a deal but then funding problems became an issue.

"But as soon as we started here (at Glencairn) I put the sale of it on the back burner. There is still a sign up and it is still on Rettie's website, but I'm in the strange position where I actually don't want anybody to make me a decent offer because I'd actually prefer it to be luxury care residence number two."

Dow is to start marketing its Chalmers Crescent facility to potential guests next month, with a series of open days planned throughout May to showcase the care home, which is mainly aimed at the over-70 but still "low-dependency" age group.

It features 26 en-suite bedrooms with a number of "hotel facilities", such as flatscreen TVs, trouser presses and mini bars in every room, a hot tub in the garden, an outdoor bowling lane, restaurant with private dining room and full-time concierge.

It also includes a hair and beauty salon and a room featuring a 5000 leather massage chair and exercise bike.

Mr Kilgour claims that the facility, with rooms ranging from around 695 to 1000 a week, is the first of its kind in Edinburgh and successfully transforms an empty former nursing home.

He believes that the Morningside Nursing Home can also prove a success. He said: "This building has a viable future for the next 25 years now. Morningside (nursing home) is empty and boarded up. But doing this to Morningside would give a C-listed building a future."