Princes Street hotel plan - your views online

A 300-bed hotel is planned for the last major site still vacant after St James Quarter exodus. Ruby Hotel will replace Zara and Next.

Ian Thomson

What I’m starting to see is that Princes Street because of its location looking across to the Castle and the Gardens, is becoming home to hotels, restaurants and some major shops. Many historic buildings, including old department shops are, though, getting restored for new uses. I never felt that Next - the old John Menzies - had a great unit on Princes Street and moving to a more adequate and spacious unit in St James was the right decision.

Heather Colvin

Princes Street is a disgrace. It's beautiful and Edinburgh Council have made it look like some run down small town mal. I would have made trams olde worlde, in keeping with the surroundings and the front full of lovley little coffee shops.

John Thompson

What, no student flats?

Murray Ramsay

Bars restaurants and hotels – that’s Princes Street’s future.

Zabby Zab

How about a small market mall?

Alex Monaghan

The Street badly needs a quality department store. Fenwicks, nearest one in Newcastle, would do so well here. Great ranges from clothes to furniture, a food market and multiple eateries and bars. A real destination experience. However, the anti-motorist policies of this council and the highest parking fees in the land doesn’t encourage local visitors. We instead take day trips to Glasgow and Newcastle and boost their economies.

May Hutchison

I’d like to see it back as it used to be with good shops.

John Davis

Wonder where the workies will park their vans!

Andrew Kwecka

Hotel or student accommodation – there was no other option, as usual in Edinburgh.

Derek Patterson

This is the changing face of life. The retail presence is in the St James Quarter and Princes Street is hotels/restaurants for tourists and local people to enjoy. Like it or not, the major retailers cannot afford to have a presence in both.

David W Wilson

Can see a time when this is all Princes Street is going be, hotels.

Colin Mclennan

Yes, we need more hotels in Edinburgh. It is one of the top destinations in the world. Princes Street is no longer a good shopping area, all the good shops have gone away.

Geema Young

The plan for Princes Street is hotels and restaurants – talked about for ages.

Wyn Campbell

Ban on tat souvenir shops.

Krisztian Koczo

I have to travel to Glasgow to see how Edinburgh was in the past. Edi is ruined totally.

Anne Gilmour

We want decent quality shops of varying price tags and not everyone moving along to St James Quarter. At the moment for a good day out shopping I need to go through to Glasgow. I've no idea what impression tourists get when one of the first streets they are likely to go through has half the shops shut.

Rannoch Smith

Try to get a hotel on any weekend in Edinburgh when there is an event on - £200 plus a night for a Premier Inn, which the following weekend is fifty quid. There’s a need for affordable hotel accommodation. However, if they can get the money they will continue to charge it. I have no solutions however. I’d rather see a hotel than an empty shop.

Jean Campbell

That's the result of a changing marketplace. Online shopping is here to stay and the shops have to pay huge rents and rates. Online companies don't have these overheads. Just vans on the roads paying their employees poor wages and conditions. Sad times.

Michael Clark

Something like Goldberg’s would be nice.

Jenny Edwards

They won't have any shops to go to before we know it. All these hotels, but nothing to do except look at the castle and trams. What an incentive to visit Edinburgh! Come to Princes Street, stay in one of our hotels on our famous street, buy a new phone, get some American candy and that's it!

Rod Hill

It's not about who's moving into a vacant site, it's the site itself that saddens me. Over the last 60 years I've seen so many Princes Street sites having 'accidental' fires, only to see the elegant 18th century structures replaced by architectural horrors. It's sad that CEC, when granting Change of Use, don't make replacing the classic facade a condition.

Write to the Edinburgh Evening News

We welcome your thoughts. Write to [email protected] including name, address and phone number – we won't print full details. Keep letters under 300 words, with no attachments. If referring to an article, include date, page number and heading.

Subscribe

Subscribe at www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/subscriptions