Plans were unveiled earlier this year to give a new lease of life to the empty building at the junction of Great Northern Road and Clifton Road, which dates back decades but closed its doors back in 2022 amid “crippling energy costs”.

Developers Inspired Living LLP now wants to convert the A-listed building into 47 student flats.

However, the Press & Journal reports that the university is battling what it sees as a rising tide of private student developments in the city. In their opposition to the Northern Hotel plans, they have cited a report which revealed that as many as 3,370 new student flats could be “in the pipeline” for Aberdeen.

Across the past few years, Granite City hotels including the Travelodge on Justice Mill Lane and former Hilton Garden Inn on St Andrew Street have been converted into accommodation.

Last September, plans for 383 student flats on the derelict site of a John Street pool hall were approved by the council. Plans for vacant buildings on Union Street and Union Terrace would soon follow.

These all coincide with the council’s aspirations to get more people living in the centre.

But all this could come at a cost to Aberdeen and Robert Gordon universities who offer hundreds of their own student apartments.

The University of Aberdeen has already expressed some concern about the proposal to turn the old TSB on Union Terrace into 28 flats. And it has now taken aim at the Northern Hotel overhaul, just a few miles from the campus and its own blocks.

In a letter to Aberdeen City Council, they accuse the developers of failing to back up claims that further student accommodation is needed.

The objection also states that these claims are at odds with a council study which determined there is “not currently a shortage of student accommodation in Aberdeen”.

While there may not be a shortage in numbers, with hundreds of beds available from the universities, it’s claimed there is a shortage of en-suite options.

In response, developers behind the Northern Hotel scheme have submitted a report to the local authority outlining accommodation needs in the city.

Knight Frank’s latest City Market Report, produced in late 2023, indicates a surging student population will require very specific types of flats in years to come. And it details the extent of purpose-built student accommodation “in the pipeline”.