"Business hub" plan on site of old Fountainbridge brewery By BRIAN FERGUSON Published on Monday 20 February 2012 00:00 A MASSIVE expansion to Edinburgh's financial district is set to be built on the site of Edinburgh's historic Fountain Brewery - despite it being snapped up for a new school last year. Council leaders have admitted only a fraction of the land by the banks of the city's Union Canal will be needed for the new eco-friendly home of Boroughmuir High, in the Fountainbridge area. The 11.5-acre site - home to a brewery for more than 150 years until its demise in 2005 - had previously been earmarked for a new headquarters building for Bank of Scotland only for the plans to be shelved when the bank had to be rescued a tax-payer-funded bailout and was taken over by the Lloyds Banking Group. However, the council - which outbid at least half-a-dozen private-sector bidders to snap up the much-sought-after plot in November - has unveiled plans to encourage the development of a new "business district" on a bigger chunk of the site than the one earmarked for the school as part of a drive to encourage an economic recovery on major gap sites across the city. New homes, a new canal boat marina, cafes, bars and restaurants, student housing for Edinburgh Napier University and a public park are also planned as part of the canal quarter. It is thought upwards of 500 new jobs could be created in the area. The expansion for the "Exchange" financial district, which first started taking shape in the early 1990s off Lothian Road, would help address a predicted shortage in office accommodation over the next few years. The council, which hopes to have the new school open within four years, is to start consulting this week on a new blueprint for the year, after years of stagnation in an area once touted as Edinburgh's answer to "Little Venice" in London. The council will need special permission from the Scottish Government, which has pledged to help pay for the new Boroughmuir High, to approve its plans as the Fountainbridge site is smaller than the recommended size for a high school. However, the council hopes to get around this by creating outdoor decks on different levels of the five-storey school - and building a sports pitch on a roof. Pupils will be taught in the new park, which will be built alongside, while classes will also visit the canal regularly. One proposal is for a series of "studio" spaces to be built alongside the canal for lessons in the likes of art and design. In a report on the latest plans, Billy MacIntyre, head of education resources, said: "It has been established that the western part of the wider site has the potential to accommodate a school, while the remainder could still deliver the wider aspirations of the existing masterplan for mixed use development. The council has aspirations for the wider Fountainbridge area... which provide for the delivery of the strategic expansion of the city's commercial district, contributing to the long-term economic growth of the city. Stan Reeves, spokesman for the Fountainbridge Canalside Initiative, a group set up to lobby for the creation of a proper "canal quarter in the area," said: "We are all for economic development, but the last thing we want to see is a whole series of offices built on the rest of the site."