Former city centre Hilton latest Aberdeen hotel earmarked for student flats

By Ben Hendry

August 6 2021, 11:45 am

The hotel closed almost a year ago, and now plans have been lodged to revive it as student flats

An Aberdeen hotel that became a Covid casualty last year is the latest shuttered premises being eyed up for new student flats.

More than 30 jobs were lost when the Hilton Garden Inn on St Andrew Street, just off George Street, went into liquidation at the end of October.

Developer Ryden subsequently put it on the market at an asking price of £3 million, hoping for another hotel operator to take it on.

But after failing to attract any buyers, plans have now been lodged with Aberdeen City Council to transform the 100-bedroom venue into student accommodation.

The hotel is one of many that couldn’t survive the pandemic.

The application forms part of a growing trend when it comes to making use of such prominent abandoned buildings.

Plans to transform the old Bauhaus Hotel on Langstane Place into student accommodation were rubber-stamped at the end of July.

Around the same time, proposals were tendered to turn the nearby Travelodge hotel on Justice Mill Lane into student flats.

Maggie Bochel, the former head of planning at Aberdeen City Council and now a director of consultancy firm Aurora, said the trend had been brought about by a sharp drop in demand for hotels.

“I remember during my time as head of planning at the city council there was huge demand for hotels,” she said.

“However, that has changed.

“It is better to have someone living in the building rather than it lying empty. It would be great to have a wider mix of types of people living there, but I think having young people will make the place more lively and vibrant.

“I would much rather these buildings were being used for something rather than sitting doing nothing. Empty buildings don’t contribute anything.”

Lockdown ‘too big a challenge’ for hotel

The Hilton Garden Inn never reopened after closing under coronavirus restrictions last March.

Professional services firm KPMG said directors of the business behind it, the St Andrew Street Hotel Company, were unable to secure funding to save it.

At the time liquidators were brought in, the hotel employed 34 people who were on furlough.

KPMG said: “Regrettably, all have been made redundant following the liquidation appointment as the business will not be able to reopen and trade.

“Unfortunately, following a prolonged period of challenging trading, lockdown was too big a challenge for the hotel in a local market already adversely impacted by oversupply.”