Glasgow University submits £1bn plans to transform Western Infirmary site

UniofGAn outline planning application for the University of Glasgow’s plans to transform the former Western Infirmary site to a cost of £1 billion have now been lodged.

The University, which took over the site in April, proposes a wide number of uses including teaching and research buildings, shops, restaurants, bars, cafes, hotels, sport and recreation facilities, a day nursery and crèche and residential or student flats.

Professor Anton Muscatelli, principal and vice-chancellor, said: “We hope to use the new site as a catalyst to attract and grow the very best students and to ensure Glasgow continues to be one of the top universities in the world.

“The first major development will be a learning and teaching hub, situated not on the former Western site but on University Avenue.



“It will provide spaces for 3,000 students at any one time, as well as state-of-the-art facilities and will allow us to use the latest techniques.”

Work on dismantling the former hospital will start this summer with the insides of existing buildings being stripped back. Demolition is unlikely to start until later this year.

It is estimated the work, one of the biggest education projects in Scotland, will create around 2500 jobs during the construction phase.

Five listed buildings will be refurbished including the chapel, the outpatients building, the Macgregor building, the Tennent Institute and the Anderson College.



A further five new buildings will be erected to house a research and innovation hub, an institute of health and wellbeing, a social justice hub, the College of Arts, the College of Science and Engineering and a centre for chronic disease.

The University moved to the west end from a city centre site in the 19th century, with the Gilbert Scott building partially completed in 1870, followed by the hospital opening in 1874.

The original proposal was to situate the hospital on the site where Kelvingrove Museum now stands, then known as Clayslaps - but instead, the town council swapped land it owned on the Western site for the Clayslaps land.

In 1878, a pre-emption clause was signed stating that if the hospital ever ceased to be a hospital then Glasgow University could buy back the site.



Faithful+Gould has been appointed as programme and project manager overseeing the provision of six academic buildings, forming a ‘smart campus’ with integrated technology and the development of a new civic square.

The full client project team includes WSP | Parsons Brinckerhoff as multi discipline engineering contractor and global architecture firm HLM.


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