Everything about Edinburgh's new £350m Quartermile urban village development shrieks style, with cutting-edge design blending seamlessly into a backdrop of the capital’s most picturesque old charms — which is why would-be buyers are forming an orderly queue for the privilege of owning part of it.

The vision of architects Foster and Partners, Quartermile is so named because the development is a quarter of a mile from Edinburgh Castle and measures a quarter of a mile across, on the site of the city’s former Royal Infirmary.

The official launch is on September 1, with show homes due to be ready early next year and the entire project scheduled to be finished some time in 2012.

But three months before the launch, more than 3,000 would-be buyers have already registered an interest. They range from medical staff with links to the old infirmary to international buyers looking for a second home and even parents wanting accommodation for their university-bound children.

This is exactly the kind of eclectic mix the planners were hoping to attract. Aisling Dunphy of sales agent Rettie & Co said: “There is quite a mix of people keen to buy into such a unique location and we are speaking privately to a lot of high net-worth clients.”

The 19-acre site will include more than 900 new and converted apartments, with provision for affordable housing; more than 30,000 sq m of office accommodation; 10,000 sq m of retail and leisure space; a five-star boutique hotel; underground car parking and a supermarket. Bordered by the Meadows, Quartermile will also have seven acres of green landscaping.

A complete lifestyle service is on offer to residents of the apartments, which range in price from just under £200,000 to £1.5m.

The complex will have a concierge service for laundry and house cleaning, and on-site estate management. Shops, restaurants and a gym will all be close at hand.

Hillcrest Housing Association is the affordable housing partner for Quartermile. It will have 170 units in one location on the site, ranging from one to three bedrooms. They will be a mix of social rent, mid-rent and low-cost ownership. They are still in the planning stage, so prices are not yet known. Whether the concentration of affordable housing will lead to resentment and other problems remains to be seen.

The apartments are an intriguing mix of old and new. Foster and Partners’ innovative design has spanking new glass-and-steel buildings alongside the restored Victorian stone of the listed building’s medical wings. The architects also designed all the modern living spaces.

The apartments, which will have between one and four bedrooms, will make good use of the site’s spectacular views on all sides and the £1.5m penthouse suites promise the tempting prospect of being able to lie back in the bath with a view of Edinburgh Castle in front of you. Foster and Partners, the master planners for the scheme, have had a team on site constantly tweaking the plans to conform to their own — and the council’s — strict standards.

They have designed everything in the apartments, from kitchens to doorhandles, although the emphasis is very much on open-plan living. Grant Brooker, of Foster and Partners, says: “We have sought to achieve the right balance between the preservation of distinguished old buildings and their integration with new, 21st-century architecture.”

Scotland’s Richard Murphy Architects and another practice, CDA, are taking a lead role in the renovation of the flats, with high ceilings and almost wall-height windows creating bright, modern living spaces but which retain much of the sense of the building’s history.

Not everyone is enthusiastic about the scheme, however. The Cockburn Association has led a long campaign to retain more of the historic buildings on the site and restrict the height of new-builds. Its director, Moira Tasker said: “The regeneration of this site has been overshadowed by short-sited commercialism. The new buildings are overwhelmingly insensitive to the site.”

Such misgivings have not dampened interest, however. Rettie & Co has been giving people who take an option on a property a password which can be used to see further plans on the internet. The company says people who have taken an option will be given first refusal when the apartments go on the market.

www.qmile.com; Hillcrest Housing Association, 0131 558 8555

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