Royal London’s plans to expand its offices in Edinburgh city centre have been approved as the group commits to growing its Scottish presence.
Britain’s biggest mutual life, pensions and investment company in the UK has £181 billion of assets under management and its new HQ will be home for up to 1,600 of the group’s 4,000 employees.
Over the years it has acquired Scottish businesses including Scottish Life and Scottish Provident.
It currently operates from Haymarket Yards and Waverley Gate and the more to the Thistle Street offices marks a return to St Andrew Square where the business has had a presence since the 19th century.
It will occupy 108,000 sq ft that includes a new auditorium, employee cafe, collaboration space, two roof terraces and extensive bicycle parking.
Edinburgh architecture firm Morgan Architects has retained 70% of the existing building that can accommodate more than 2,000 employees. Critics will say it is a modern intrusion into the historic environment, with over-sized windows and an overbearing roofline.
The site comprises a category C listed building at 2 Queen Street and an unlisted office building at 1 Thistle Street.
It forms part of one of the earliest areas of the First New Town to be developed to James Craig’s published plan of 1768.
The original six houses on the Site were complete by 1773. In 1889 the southernmost houses were replaced by a new Stock Exchange building and since then the various parts of the site have been redeveloped periodically over the intervening years.
The original townhouses on Queen Street were demolished in 1971 and replaced with pastiche façades.
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