The Haymarket Development

In 2014 SPRUCE provided a £9.6m senior debt facility to Edinburgh Haymarket Developments Limited, an Interserve sponsored special purpose vehicle. The funding supported the delivery of the engineering works and land assimilation required to regenerate an underutilised site in west central Edinburgh.

The site is situated in close proximity to Edinburgh’s Haymarket train station (one of Edinburgh’s two main railway stations and recently the subject of a £25m refurbishment) and a tram interchange, and is approximately half a mile to the southwest of Princes Street, close to Edinburgh’s Financial Services District.

This project has strong regeneration credentials, including being located within one of the 13 most deprived local authority regions of Scotland, which were the key target areas for SPRUCE prior to the fund’s first closing at the end of 2015.

The SPRUCE investment focused on remediation of a brownfield and significantly underutilised site spanning 1.7 hectares. Associated benefits included considerable job creation during construction and thereafter, and creating the space required for a large scale, high profile development in an area close to the centre of Edinburgh.

With the SPRUCE related works successfully completed, and the loan facility repaid, the funds were able to become available for investment into other SPRUCE projects in the pipeline.