PIONEERING hybrid hotel brand The Student Hotel has signed up to open a 500-bed complex at the massive Candleriggs Quarter development in Glasgow City Centre.

It will be one of the company’s first UK sites. The Student Hotel states that its mission is to “create boundary-blurring spaces where students, travellers, mobile professionals, creative nomads and enterprising minds can connect and thrive in smart design co-living and co-working spaces.”

Drum Property Group and Stamford Property Investments are behind the major mixed-use development at Candleriggs Quarter — land bounded by Hutcheson Street, Trongate, Candleriggs and Wilson Street — which has lain derelict for over a decade

An operator is also on board for a 348-flat build-to-rent building.

Detailed planning applications for the hotel and private rental buildings — which will front the Trongate side — along with planning permission in principle for the whole site will be lodged at the end of the month.

The site will be divided into five blocks, with building rising as high as 16 floors. Uses for the other blocks have yet to be finalised but are likely to includes offices and residential properties for sale.

Food and beverage and retail uses will included at ground floor levels.

Streets within the site will be promoted as pedestrian priority and there will be a formal open square at the intersection of Candleriggs and Wilson Street. There will be a second square in the centre of the block.

A design statement by architects Stallan-Brand explains: “The proposal includes buildings of a variety of heights allowing the development to respond to the site’s distinct and varied urban context.

“Taller buildings are generally located away from corners and pushed into the site. The proposed storey heights do not exceed the maximum heights within the previously consented scheme.”