Aberdeen’s commercial property prowess is earning the city recognition on a bigger stage.
A prestigious development in Glasgow for Granite City company Esson Properties and a graduate surveyor in the Aberdeen office of international property firm CBRE have both been under the spotlight lately.
Esson’s project at 100 Queen Street, Glasgow, which is the new headquarters for whisky-maker Edrington, was recently named among the most exceptional, innovative and ambitious projects in the UK this year.
The new office complex – located in Glasgow’s central business district in Royal Exchange Square, opposite the Gallery of Modern Art – was 55% pre-let to Edrington, the company behind whisky brands The Macallan, The Famous Grouse, Highland Park and Cutty Sark, as well as Brugal rum and Snow Leopard vodka.
Comprising seven storeys of Grade A office accommodation and four ground floor retail units, the building is among the finalists in the commercial renovation/redevelopment category of the 2016 UK Property Awards.
Looked forward to the contest reaching its climax at a ceremony in London on October 28, Esson chief executive Hunter Esson said he and the rest of his team were thrilled to be recognised for a “compelling building in one of the most iconic viewpoints in the city”.
He added: “We look forward to standing shoulder to shoulder with some of the country’s most reputable real estate organisations.”
The judging panel consists of four members of the upper house at Westminster – chairman Lord Caithness alongside Lord Best, Lord Liverpool and Lord Thurso.
Meanwhile, CBRE graduate surveyor Amie Owen was named as a top prize-winner at the 2016 RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors) Scotland Student Prize Awards in Edinburgh.
She won the gong for the best building surveying dissertation, thanks to an essay looking at why historic buildings continue to be damaged by fire despite readily available guidance and technology specifically designed to prevent a blaze.
Ms Owen was nominated for the honour by Edinburgh Napier University after she was named best student in her class.
RICS Scotland runs the awards every year and involves all four Scottish universities that run construction related courses – Heriott-Watt, Edinburgh Napier, Glasgow Caledonian and Aberdeen.
Prizes are awarded for the best dissertations for building Surveying, Quantity Surveying and Valuation. For the first time all three prizes were awarded to students from Edinburgh Napier University.
Ms Owen, who graduated with a first-class honours in building surveying, said: “I am incredibly passionate about the built environment and chose the subject of my dissertation following the fire at the Glasgow School of Art.
“A number of experts from within the industry had suggested this could have been avoided, and from my research I discovered that fire damage in such buildings is a continuing problem despite the fact that there are lots of ways to protect them.”
