Plans for a hotel in central St Andrews may be abandoned in favour of student accommodation after failure to find a buyer.
The owner of Abbey Park House, in the old St Leonards fields, has planning permission to convert the listed building into a 47-bed hotel and had been marketing the derelict property around the world.
Developer Robertson Homes is now seeking consent to turn the former St Leonards School boarding house into student digs instead due to a lack of interest in the scheme from the hotel industry.
It is seeking planning permission and listed building consent from Fife Council to convert Abbey Park House into student accommodation comprising 98 bedrooms.
Already, the dilapidated structure is on Historic Scotland’s Buildings at risk register.
Agent for Robertson Homes, Barton Willmore, told local authority planners: “The building is continuing to deteriorate rapidly and is in desperate need of restoration through redevelopment for an appropriate and viable use.
“No credible hotel operator has been found to date to purchase the site and so an alternative viable use is being sought in order to save the building.”
Abbey Park House, which was built in the early 1800s and has lain vacant for over a decade, is part of a wider site off Abbey Walk being redeveloped by Knightsbridge, an arm of Robertson Homes.
Further student accommodation is on the cards in a section of the St Leonards site outwith the ownership of Robertson Homes. Watkin Jones Group is proposing a 241-bed facility on the site of the old St Andrews Memorial Hospital.
If given the green light, Robertson Homes intends to restore the main part of Abbey Park House and replace the stables block added later with a two-storey extension.
‘Clusters’ of four to seven bedrooms would be created, with shared kitchen and lounge areas. Three of the reception rooms would be turned into double-bed studio apartments.
Barton Willmore said restoration of Abbey Park House was seen as one of the most important factors in establishing a new neighbourhood at St Leonards.
Recent surveys have, it was stated, identified serious concerns over the building’s stability.