August 17 2022

Drum Property Group has delivered 324 build-to-rent apartments at Buchanan Wharf in Glasgow city centre for Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM).

Solasta Riverside comprises two 18-storey apartment buildings in a 280,000sq/ft riverfront complex that includes a dedicated dining space, gym, residents’ lounge and games room.

Topped by a 4,250 sq/ft communal roof terrace the towers are the latest addition to Buchanan Wharf, a £500m mixed-use development on the south bank of the River Clyde designed by Stallan-Brand with Halliday Fraser Munro.

Graeme Bone, group managing director of Drum Property Group, said: “The new apartments and facilities will bring an exciting dynamic to the area, making Buchanan Wharf a stimulating and attractive environment in which to live, work, and visit.”

Mike Powell, head of transactions, BTR, at LGIM Real Assets, added: “The city has seen particularly low levels of residential development over the last 10 years and an increasing demand for high quality, well-located rental accommodation in the city centre. This acute supply and demand imbalance means the completion of our BTR development at Buchanan Wharf will bring a long-term sustainable rental scheme to Glasgow, meeting the demands of this vibrant and fast-growing city.”

The final element of Buchanan Wharf, a 75,000sq/ft office HQ for the Student Loans Company, is expected to complete in 2023.   

13 Comments

#1 Posted by Roddy_ on 17 Aug 2022 at 16:07 PM

A lesson in how to sanitise Kingston Street at ground level.That blank frontage is astonishing for all the wrong reasons.

The design framework document supposedly underpinning quality, was a couple hundred pages long and yet they simply didn't bother to implement active fronts here. I mean this is urban design 101. It is a profound failure of good placemaking and a failure by the designers and design governance at City Design- where were they? Then again we have seen multiple failures of policy and governance recently (see Clayton Tower as it backs on to St Enoch's).

There are rumours that Barclays want to develop further into Tradeston but they'll need to do a lot better than this and all the terracotta planks in the world won't help disguise a dreadful attitude to the local streets.

#2 Posted by John on 17 Aug 2022 at 16:51 PM

It looks fantastic, a real credit to Glasgow and it will undoubtedly boost the Glasgow Economy.

Well done Drum

#3 Posted by Jim on 17 Aug 2022 at 17:39 PM

Congratulations Drum. This looks fab
Would be good to see the interiors

#4 Posted by Falconhoof on 18 Aug 2022 at 10:38 AM

Oppressive bores aside,this looks great , especially entering central.

#5 Posted by Pablo on 18 Aug 2022 at 13:15 PM

Looks dec by, by the ground level on Kingston Street IS appalling. Contributes to killing the potential of a street.

#6 Posted by George on 18 Aug 2022 at 15:27 PM

#1 - Great if Barclays do wants to develop further into Tradeston as their buildings have been a huge boost for the area and look great. However these 2 BTR towers are awful, up close the cladding is cheap and tacky and looks terrible, why cant GCC insist on some decent facing materials for such prominent developments, wouldnt be allowed in many other cities. Ruining Glasgow, one facade at a time.

#7 Posted by E=mc2 on 18 Aug 2022 at 17:19 PM

Expensive terracotta cladding, the colour of snot and mince, does not effectively mask the fact that these are two of the most badly designed buildings to ever grace the Glasgow skyline. As good as the masterplan for the site may have been by Stallan Brand, the detailed execution of the main buildings by the Masters of the Mediocre, HFM and CC, does not live up the those same high standards unfortunately. Especially these towers.

#8 Posted by Billy on 19 Aug 2022 at 00:30 AM

I had a walk around Buchanan Wharf and was impressed by the improvement to the area. The towers could be more interesting though. Be good if Barclays could develop further into Tradeston just make any future high rises a bit more interesting.

#9 Posted by Lovely on 19 Aug 2022 at 10:38 AM

I had a walk around the area and was shooed away by super-unfriendly security guys, feels a lot like one of these financialised bits of London but perhaps better than pure dereliction, or maybe not when you consider that the dereliction is often deliberate.

#10 Posted by pooka on 19 Aug 2022 at 11:16 AM

big jobby and bog slime pulled out of the clyde are never going to be good at street level

#11 Posted by Sue Pearman on 19 Aug 2022 at 12:38 PM

#10 I don’t think comments like this are particularly helpful. The building possibly has issues with it’s lack of street interface and the colours might not seem attractive to some but we need to be able to talk maturely about urban design if we are to move forward and improve our built environment. The cladding panels look high quality and are a relief from all the metal in the adjacent buildings, though I do wonder if they will suffer the same cracking issues that happened with the large format terracotta at Glasgow Harbour.

#12 Posted by E=mc2 on 20 Aug 2022 at 16:43 PM

From an urban design perspective, they are a total fail in terms of how they engage at ground level, how they sit on the skyline, and have the appearance of upmarket Romanian high rise

#13 Posted by E=mc2 on 21 Aug 2022 at 18:42 PM

Expensive terracotta cladding, the colour of snot and mince, does not effectively mask the fact that these are two of the most badly designed buildings to ever grace the Glasgow skyline. As good as the masterplan for the site may have been by Stallan Brand, the detailed execution of the main buildings by the Masters of the Mediocre, HFM and CC, does not live up the those same high standards unfortunately. Especially these towers.

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