Behind The Admiral’s closure: How Glasgow lost a ‘successful and solvent’ pub to developers

Glasgow’s music scene took a massive blow on Saturday 4 February, when the institution of sound that was The Admiral shocked the city by announcing their imminent closure.

This was unexpected news for the many punters, artists, and friends of the pub, as the venue has been going strong for 60 years, serving generations of Glaswegians and introducing them to the latest and greatest of the city’s musicians.

The move is not the choice of the owners and current operators of the pub - Marc Ferrier, Simon Small, and Dave Ross - who’ve been clinging onto the property that has been in the sights of developers for over six years.

Initially plans were submitted in 2016 by Whiteburn Projects - who struggled to get their design approved by Glasgow City Council planners - in part due to the resistance from The Admiral as a tenant, and due to the affected B-listed building of Coltas House, an old distillery that would be partially demolished under the plans.

It wasn’t only The Admiral fighting their corner against the development, but also the likes of former Lord Provost of Glasgow and current councillor, Eva Bolander, and The Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland, who both opposed another attempt at getting the proposal signed off by the planning office in 2020.

The new plans, submitted by Varsity Developments who recently acquired the property, are the culmination of several different rejected proposals. In an alteration of a rejected plan from 2016, the developer will demolish a segment of the building The Admiral trades in, forcing its closure against the owners’ will.

Under the now approved plans, the building will be transformed into a ‘mixed-use office block’ - with The Admiral to be replaced with a glass-fronted café and restaurant on the ground floor.

Current designs show the building will look similar to other newly installed office blocks on Waterloo Street, a towering monolith of characterless glass and steel, a short walk from Glasgow Central station. Ex-DJ and part-owner/operator of The Admiral, Dave Ross, spoke to GlasgowWorld about the logistics of the development, he said: “It became apparent to us pretty quickly that the developers didn’t want us there and that’s a difficult situation, we’ve absolutely no scope in getting the lease renewed and there’s a point where we all have to give up fighting.

“It’s just one of these things, I’ve not got any rancour or bitterness. I just wish the City Fathers [council] would have actually honoured their own thoughts on mixed-use projects. I don’t think they think of the implication for the wee guy.

“Had we taken the original offer from the developers a few years back, we would have gotten a much better deal than we have now - which would have given us a decent amount of money to move on to new things - but there’s no use crying over spilled milk.”

Hundreds of people have shared messages of support with the venue since the closure was announced on Saturday morning on social media. As it stands, The Admiral has been served their notice to vacate the building by March 20, so the owners are keeping the bar up and running right until March 11.

The latest owners of the pub are in their 18th year of running the Waterloo Street bar, and by all accounts have been doing a pretty good job, hosting countless club nights and featuring musicians from the smallest independent bands to some of the biggest artists to come out of Scotland.

Friends of The Admiral include the likes of Billy Connolly, who frequented the venue with the late Gerry Rafferty in the 1970s, Paolo Nutini, James Murphy from LCD Soundsystem and Franz Ferdinand in more recent times. Jimmy Page played the venue at least once before he became part of Led Zeppelin. The Cribs, and countless other influential names in the Scottish art and music scene all either played the stage or popped in for a pint.

Always the trailblazers, The Admiral would put on just about anyone with a bit of talent and some attitude in their downstairs club venue, ranging from dance acts to indie bands to soul nights to drag shows to fundraisers - every night was different in this Waterloo Street landmark.

Dave Ross, who manages the artistic and fiscal side of the business, spoke about the pub’s history, said: “The Admiral is a pub with a huge history - especially personally, there’s been family marriages through our relations working at the pub, it’s been an integral part of our lives.

“I’ll be really sad when it shuts, it’s tragic. I’ve been involved with loads of great venues in my time - The Tunnel, Buff Club, Fury Murray’s, the list goes on - but the best and warmest place has always been The Admiral.”

The pub was well-known for its sold-out annual ‘Bowie’ nights, led by Dave - one of the most eminent Glasgow scholars on all things David Bowie - which was just one of many fundraisers the pub held to raise tens of thousands of pounds for mental health and cancer charities.

The Admiral also hosted other Scottish and Glasgow greats in the form of Gerry Love of Teenage Fanclub, Lewis Capaldi, Hipsway, The Apple Scruffs, SLAM, Al Murray, Bobby Bluebell, Gerard Butler, Kevin McDermott, H2O and Amber Swallows.

Dave went on to share his favourite memories from the pub, he told us: ”There’s been some brilliant capers over the years. Gordon Strachan came into the pub with Roy Keane and the whole Celtic squad after a 2-0 win against Livingston in 2006.

“It was quite bizarre, Keane had drank about six cans of Red Bull - as if someone as mental as him needed that - it was the day the smoking ban came in and we caught Artur Boric smoking in the office.