PLANS have been submitted for a 165-bed hotel on a brownfield site in the Merchant City.

The site, currently used as a carpark, is bounded by Osborne Street to the south, Old Wynd to the west and TJ Hughes department store to the north.

It also sits alongside John Byrne’s “Billy Connolly” mural.

Developers hope the 12-storey hotel will ‘reinstate’ the street frontages and promote a pedestrian link between Osborne Street and Trongate.

Read more: Hotel room cost in Glasgow fastest rising in UK

The site has been vacant since the mid-1990s, when the original building was demolished to make way for a new four storey development. 

However, this development never materialised, and the site has been in use as a car park since this time.

In 2009, a planning application for a 12-storey mixed-use development comprising residential and retail space was given the go-ahead but never implemented.

A operator for the hotel has already been identified.

The building would not have any designated parking.

A statement submitted with the application explains: “It is the intention to redevelop the site integrating it sympathetically to the existing built form whilst creating an architectural statement that addresses the streetscape and adds vibrancy and life back to this area of the city.”

Glasgow Times:

The development is one of several being planned for the city.

On neighbouring Clyde Street at Dixon Street, a 450-bed hotel development is under way.

The £90m project will see the transformation of the A-listed Custom House sandstone building into a hotel, apartments and restaurant due for completion in 2020. 

Read more of today's top Glasgow stories 

Custom House was built in 1840 and housed officials who collected duties on imports and exports at the harbour and held registers of ships.

Further along Clyde Street, a seven-storey building proposed for student accommodation with short stay accommodation outwith term time is still pending permission by Glasgow City Council

A 250-bed Travel Inn at Howard Street is also due to take shape.
Elsewhere, Yotel is currently converting the Westergate building near Central Station into a 256-bed facility and approval has been give for a 300-bed Maldron hotel on the corner of Renfrew Street at Renfield Street - beside the existing CitizenM hotel.

Glasgow Times:

Applications still to be decided by planning bosses include a 14-storey hotel on West Nile Street at Bath Street and a hotel as part of the Buchanan Wharf development at Tradeston.

Throughout 2018, the city welcomed a number of new hotels.

Ibis, Moxy and Motel One all chose the city for their project. 

One of the most notable additions came in the form of the Radisson Red, near the Scottish Events Campus, which is complete with a rooftop bar.

Two more hotels on the same site are still under construction.

As previously reported by the Evening Times, the cost of a hotel room in the city has increased faster than anywhere else in the UK within the last year.

Due to the increase in tourists, conferences and businesses travellers coming to the city, more hotels have opted to open here.

A report by PwC found the number of hotel rooms in Glasgow has grown by more than 10% in a year to more than 11,000.