Earlier this year, Savills secured 'minded to grant' consent for a 16-storey, 287-bed purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) development on behalf of TREC Capital (Glasgow) Limited. The existing building incorporates High Alumina Cement concrete and is no longer capable of delivering the quality of Grade A office accommodation required by today's occupiers through refurbishment or retrofit. Its demolition is therefore necessary to secure a long-term future for this prominent city centre site.

The scheme comes at a time when Glasgow continues to experience strong demand for student accommodation and remains undersupplied in terms of operational PBSA. At the same time, however, the city centre has seen a significant increase in both consented schemes and projects under construction. Fusion Students' 633-bed development on the former Marks & Spencer site on Sauchiehall Street and Watkins Jones' 784-bed Àrd scheme at Portcullis House are among the largest developments currently taking shape within the city centre.

This raises an important question: what comes next for Glasgow's city centre PBSA market?

As the current pipeline is delivered, the market is likely to enter a period of consolidation. The focus will shift from securing planning consent for new schemes to successfully delivering and operating those already under construction. For projects still progressing through the planning system, there may be a greater emphasis on flexibility, with developers considering longer implementation periods or exploring alternative routes to delivery.

Importantly, this should not be seen as a loss of confidence in student accommodation as an asset class. Rather, it reflects the scale of development activity that has already taken place and the opportunity to assess how the city centre market evolves as new supply becomes operational.

The extensive work undertaken to bring forward PBSA schemes in recent years should not be underestimated. In many cases, significant progress has been made in establishing development principles, testing appropriate scale and massing, and demonstrating how larger projects can successfully integrate into the city centre environment.

That creates opportunities beyond PBSA alone. Some consented or emerging schemes may ultimately come forward as other forms of managed residential accommodation, while others could support office or mixed-use development as market conditions evolve. The key point is that the planning work undertaken today can help unlock a range of future development opportunities.

For Glasgow City Centre, the priority should be creating a balanced mix of uses that attracts people to live, work and spend time in the heart of the city. Increasing the number of residents and workers will be critical to boosting footfall, supporting businesses and strengthening the long-term vitality of the city centre.

The next chapter in Glasgow's regeneration story is therefore unlikely to be defined by a single development sector. Instead, it will be shaped by delivering the right mix of uses in the right locations, creating a vibrant and sustainable city centre that works throughout the day and into the evening.