New £500m '˜urban quarter' planned for Edinburgh outskirts

About 43 acres of land south of Edinburgh Park would be transformed under the plans by property developer Parabola.

The capital’s biggest development for well over a decade is earmarked for a swathe of land on both sides of the tram line near the Gyle Shopping Centre.

About 43 acres of undeveloped land to the south of the Edinburgh Park business park would be transformed under the plans by property developer Parabola.

It is expected to help tackle a shortfall of high quality office space in the city and boost efforts to attract major employers to invest in Edinburgh.

Parabola said it believes the vacant land will become home to “one of the most desirable places to live and work in Edinburgh”.

Edinburgh Park, which opened in 1995, is home to more than one million sq ft of offices, including bases for RBS, Diageo, HSBC, JP Morgan and Sainsbury’s Bank. The new venture would see another 750,000 sq ft of commercial space created.

Parabola, which was behind the Central Square scheme in Newcastle and the Kings Place project in London, said it envisaged Edinburgh would “compete on a UK stage” in the next few years.

A “civic square”, 150-seat conference and events facility, bar-restaurant, leisure and medical centre, micro-brewery and specially commissioned works of art would also be created.

Parabola hopes to start work on the project next summer, with the first offices due to open by 2020.

The scale of its project, which will be served by the Edinburgh Park Central tram stop, would be much bigger than the ongoing Quartermile, New Waverley and St James schemes in the city centre.

Parabola founder Peter Millican said: “Our vision is unashamedly ambitious – to create a new vibrant community and architectural exemplar designed around the happiness and success of its people. We’re building a new working and living community, redefining modern Edinburgh with a new gateway for the capital.

“We’ve undertaken considerable research in the UK and across Europe in order to create a vision which we hope will represent a new ‘place’ for the city.”