Luxury hotel complex plan for Paisley town centre

The development aims to transform two historic buildings into a 40-room boutique hotel with bar, brasserie and conferencing facilities.

The site opposite Paisley Abbey consists of two buildings - Kelvin House, which was built in 1939 and has an Art Deco front elevation, and Forbes Place, which was built around 1830 and was used for patternmaking and as a shawl warehouse by the thread industry.

There are also plans for a microbrewery and short and long-stay car parking facilities associated with the hotel.

Local entrepreneur Tom Stewart has submitted plans for the development, to be called the Patternmaker, to Renfrewshire Council.

Mr Stewart, who also owns the four-star Ashtree House Hotel near Paisley Museum, hopes the project will help drive the regeneration of Paisley.

He said: “Successful regeneration projects tend to have an anchor development around which other developments and investments are stimulated. We see the regeneration of Kelvin House and the Patternmaker building in the same way. It is an outstanding location adjacent to the Abbey and has the potential to become a focal point as the economy of the town develops.”

He added: “There is a lot of grassroots work under way at the moment to put the right infrastructure and strategies in place to build the town’s economy. Tourism, in particular heritage tourism, support for businesses and public realm investment are just some of the initiatives now under way. A lot of tourism and business traffic currently bypasses Paisley but that is going to change.

“Currently the town has just two hotels, so there will be significant demand for a quality hotel, leisure and business services venue of the type that we will be targeting.”

The first phase of the three to five-year development would open for business in the summer of 2016.

It is expected to create more than 50 full and part-time jobs and provide a range of contracts for local suppliers.