A reopening date for Perth City Hall in a new guise as a food market hall will be known within the next three months.
If councillors back the market hall plan at a meeting on Wednesday, an essential element of lease negotiations will be setting out a timetable for works to the building and a completion date.
The recommendation in a report by the council’s head of planning and development, David Littlejohn, is that councillors confirm Perth Market Place Ltd as the preferred bidder to operate the city hall as a food market.
The viability of the project had been a concern to councillors and led to the deferral until the coming week to raise the issue with Historic Scotland.
The heritage watchdog told the council their position remained unchanged and their principal objective is to secure a use for the listed Edwardian building.
Guided by this stance, the council officials feel the market plan has a greater possibility of becoming a reality than the proposal for a boutique hotel.
However, they are keen to ensure financial aspects of the proposal are ironed out before proceeding further to avoid any further delays in finding a solution to the future of the city hall.
“Given continuing concerns about the specific funding and implementation arrangements, and to mitigate against the potential risk of failure to conclude a lease, it is proposed that Perth Market Place Ltd be required to provide supporting evidence of their ability to conclude the lease within an appropriate timescale,” says Mr Littlejohn in his report.
With this in mind, within three months of the award of preferred bidder status they would be required to provide details of where investment in the project would come from and how long it would be until the food market hall would become a reality.
“The council would require all these preconditions to be satisfied before granting a long ground lease,” said Mr Littlejohn.
The report reveals that following a two-year rent free period from date of entry, Perth Common Good Fund could expect an annual rent of £20,000 plus a potential 7.5% of the turnover generated by a market hall.