“It’s brand new, quite luxurious – and on top of it all, affordable,” Mark Anderson smiles as we weave our way up the stairs at 173 Union Street. Just a year ago, the prominent building in Aberdeen city centre had been “more or less falling apart” – having lain desolate and in need of urgent repairs for decades. It took Mark and fellow Cater Group masterminds, father and daughter Steve and Vivien Choi, months to strip the grotty upper floors above the Santander bank.
There are now no signs of the rotten ledges, the crumbling walls and the mess left by pigeons, which would often sneak their way in through the window cracks. Instead, these have been replaced by polished marble kitchen tops, dark-oak furniture and a fresh coat of white paint. And the developers hope this transformation could be a major step forward in efforts to breathe new life into Union Street, getting more people living in the city centre.
How dilapidated Union Street offices came to be luxury new flats The paint in the recently renovated foyer of the newly named Union Residence has barely dried out as I’m taken on a tour of the listed building. I’m led into a spacious one-bed flat facing the city’s main thoroughfare. This is one of six luxury flats – four of which are two-bed – that Cater Group has recently created as part of their plans to bring derelict spots across Aberdeen back into use.
The firm purchased the property back in 2019, however, the project remained in limbo for year.