Edinburgh is not short on culture. It’s full of brilliant museums and art galleries, and it plays host to several famous festivals, most notably the legendary Edinburgh Fringe which jumpstarted the careers of countless now-famous comedians and performers.
Soon, Auld Reekie will be able to add a brand new purpose-built concert hall to its list of offerings, as work is due to start on the Dunard Centre ‘within weeks’, according to its developers. The new venue will be the first of its kind in Edinburgh in over a century.
The centre will cost a total of £162 million to build, with funding coming from different sources including the Scottish Government, the city council, and fundraising from the International Music and Performing Arts Charitable Trust (IMPACT) Scotland. Plans have been in the works for a few years, but now that a contractor – Balfour Beatty – has been selected, construction can begin.
Once complete, the Dunard Centre will have a capacity of 1,000 in its main concert hall. It hopes to provide a ‘creative, collaborative space that hums with activity all day every day’, and it’s been designed to host loads of different musical performances, from pop to rock to classical. It will also become the permanent home of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and be used as a venue during festival season. Dunard’s developers hope that construction will take around four years so that it will be ready to open before 2030.
It will be right in the city centre, on St Andrew Square just a 10-minute walk to Princes Street. Locals will benefit from ‘a far-reaching engagement programme’ which will include apprenticeships, learning opportunities for school children, and collaborations with ‘cultural and third sector organisations’.
The centre’s chief executive, Jo Buckley, said that signing a contract with Balfour Beattie represents ‘a huge milestone for the Dunard Centre, and an historic moment for the city’, adding that; ‘as a living, breathing community centre with a concert hall at its heart, the benefits of this landmark investment will be felt daily by countless individuals and communities for generations to come.’
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