Jenners building restoration in Edinburgh to take four years

The Jenners building in Edinburgh is to undergo a four year restoration so the Victorian department store can be returned to its former glory.

Danish owner Anders Holch Povlsen has given more detail of his plans to spend millions of pounds restoring the 183-year-old building on Princes Street.

His former tenant Frasers Group, owned by Mike Ashley, has now returned the Jenners signs it had removed.

Sections of the department store could open sooner than the four years.

Under the plan about 10,000m2 of disused rooms above the department store in the six storey building will be made into a hotel.

A cafe will be created between the department store and hotel.

Anders Krogh Vogdrup - the director of Mr Povlsen's AAA United, which owns the Jenners building - told BBC Scotland the department store would remain the same size.

He said: "The Jenners building on Princes Street in Edinburgh is set for an exciting restoration, which will revive the much-loved building's Victorian heritage and re-establish its prominence on the principal retail street of Scotland's capital.

"The ambition is to bring the iconic Jenners building into a new era, by aspiring to return the building to its original glory and quality - recreating the feeling of a grand department store, while also adding new modern facilities.

"The project is first and foremost about helping to preserve a unique historic building in Edinburgh.

"We are pursuing the project because we have a passion for architecture and historical buildings. Already when we acquired the building, we knew that it came with a great deal of responsibility."

He said one of the highlights of the project would be the restoration of the central atrium - a three-storey, top-lit grand saloon.

The Victorian facade will also be restored, while the 1966 extension facing onto Princes Street will receive a new facade, "which respects the older sections of the Jenners building".

The building's parapet will be extended and the roofscape will be tidied as part of plans for a rooftop bar overlooking St Andrew Square.

The rooftop will also include a private terrace for the hotel's corner suite, which will have views of The Mound and Arthur's Seat.

The hotel's entrance will be on Rose Street at the back of the building, while the department store entrances on Princes Street and South St David Street will remain as shop doors.

All three Jenners signs were returned earlier this week to the side of the building after they were removed by its previous tenant, Frasers Group, which is owned by Sports Direct owner Mike Ashley.

City of Edinburgh Council issued Mr Ashley, who owns the intellectual rights to the Jenners name, with an enforcement notice to return the signs to the listed building earlier this month.

Frasers Group left the Jenners building on 3 May.

Founded in 1838, Jenners is one of the oldest department stores in the world to continuously trade from the same site.

After the original Jenners building was destroyed by a fire in 1892, architect William Hamilton Beattie designed the current building on Princes Street in the Victorian renaissance revival style.

The new building opened in 1895 and was extended in 1903.

Further extensions were added in the 1950s and 1960s.