Former office on Festival Square will be converted into 195-bedroom Premier Inn
Whitbread PLC, the owner of the Premier Inn hotel chain, has received confirmation from The City of Edinburgh Council that it has granted planning permission for the conversion of Capital House in the centre of Edinburgh into a 195-bedroom Premier Inn.
Whitbread will invest £21 million in the conversion and rear extension of the 65,350 sq ft vacant office building into a latest format Premier Inn hotel with a ground floor restaurant and bar.
The new Premier Inn is anticipated to generate an additional £8.1 million per year in visitor expenditure through the external spending of more than 56,000 business and leisure guests which are predicted to stay at the hotel every year once it reaches maturity.
Whitbread believes half of this external year-round expenditure is anticipated to be spent supporting city centre businesses based on a comprehensive nationwide study of its customers in 2023.
Jill Anderson, Acquisitions Manager for Scotland at Whitbread, said: “We are fortunate to have an established network of 14 trading Premier Inn hotels in Edinburgh which welcome a million visitors a year and drive £32 million in annual external spending in the city.
“The strong year-round demand we are continuing to experience for our rooms in the city is driving the expansion of Premier Inn across Edinburgh, including at Capital House in the heart of the city centre.
“It is a sensational location for a budget hotel given its proximity to iconic tourist destinations like Edinburgh Castle, a host of theatres and concert venues, the Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC) and the Exchange District.
“Getting the green light to convert the 1980’s office into a latest format Premier Inn is a huge achievement for the team and we will waste no time in breathing fresh life into the empty building and adding another high-quality location for our customers in Scotland.”
Whitbread acquired Edinburgh Capital House freehold in late 2024 and submitted a planning application to change the use of the 1980s office block to a hotel in May 2025.
In addition to its investment in Capital House, Whitbread is working to expand the presence of Premier Inn at Edinburgh Airport and add a fourth hub by Premier Inn hotel in the city to the east of the city centre.
Premier Inn is the UK’s largest hotel chain with a network of 85,500 hotel bedrooms across the UK & Ireland trading from more than 840 hotel locations. Across both countries, the company believes in the long-term potential for 125,000 Premier Inn bedrooms.
