IN FOCUS | When empires fall and ‘everything must go’

The Debenhams name has this month been claimed as the new identity of Boohoo, which bought its brand from administrators in 2021 – a move highlighting the regard that the storied department store group was held in. But what became of its vast former estate?

Because once upon a time, not so very long ago, Debenhams and department stores like it were titans of our towns and cities.

Occupying vast square footages within the prime core, they were a town’s heartbeat, its social glue. A meeting place for friends and families (the singer Richard Hawley’s album Coles Corner attests to just this status), a magnet for smaller retailers and F&B traders, guaranteeing heavy footfall through the days and weeks, all year round.

That all changed over the first 20 years of this century, at first slowly and then more rapidly. We all know the broad reasons, and there’s no intention to relitigate the issues here. And it should be made clear, Debenhams was far from alone – the department store model as we knew it was blown apart.

Debenhams went into administration for a second time in spring 2020 – the writing had been on the wall for years, so it had no chance of making it through Covid. Following the sale of the brand and website to Boohoo for £55m in January 2021 (this new business reported its first profits in December, incidentally), those stores still trading pulled down the shutters for good in May 2021.

BAE bought the vacant Barrow store in 2022. Credit: planning documents

All told, more than 20 locations across the North West were stuck with a whopping empty hole in their towns.

What have the years since brought? Two years ago, the national picture was not a happy one, with reports suggesting just 39% of Debenhams space had been let in a sluggish post-pandemic market.

However, deals noticeably picked up in 2024. So as we close in on four years since the last stores closed, how are our ex-Debenhams stores shaping up, and what might it tell us about how British towns are changing? Step right in…

Greater Manchester

Manchester: Let’s start with perhaps the most obvious, the gargantuan store at the northernmost tip of Piccadilly Gardens, now billed as The Rylands by German owner AM Alpha. The overhaul has been tweaked by Jeffrey Bell Architects, with reports in December that a food hall operator was close to a 15,000 sq ft deal on the ground floor. Work started in 2022 and isn’t expected to complete until 2027 on a project that includes a four-storey extension, meaning 10 floors of mixed-use floorspace, including around 300,000 sq ft of workspace.

Bury: Debenhams closed at The Rock, Bury’s prime retail pitch, in May 2021. Within months, ever-busy discounter The Range had done a deal to take on the store as its 200th location, throwing open the doors in November of that year. Accounting for 65,000 sq ft over three floors, the store also includes an Iceland in-store offer, itself The Range’s 100th such tie-up with the food retailer.

Stockport: As recounted here among Place’s best-read stories of 2024, a meanwhile-use was found for the Stockport store in January last year, with Joseph James Furniture inking a five-year lease for the 90,000 sq ft unit. Potentially, the council-owned site could still be in play to accommodate a replacement for the ageing Stepping Hill hospital, but the recent government rejigging of the New Hospitals Programme had no news, good or bad, for Stockport.

Stockport Council acquired the building in 2012. Credit: Stockport Council

Oldham: A foundational piece of the Spindles shopping centre, Debenhams closed its doors to Oldham in May 2021. Oldham Council had bought the Spindles in 2020 as it sought to reshape the town centre, reducing the volume of retail and bringing office space for public and private sector alike in a major reworking of the building.

Bolton: Along with The Vaults, Debenhams was the anchor of Moorgarth’s 380,000 sq ft Market Place retail & leisure complex. As in Bury, the unit landed another large-format retailer to take up a chunk of vacated space… although this took a while. As part of a £100m investment programme to ginger up its national estate, Primark opened a 26,300 sq ft store on the ground floor in November 2024, relocating from the soon to be demolished Crompton Place.

Altrincham: Although it came early, in 2020, the loss of Debs’ created a hole less gaping than some others for Alty, with a 20,000 sq ft unit on George Street left up for grabs. This was taken over in September 2024 by Mountain Warehouse, the accessibly-priced outdoors retailer, for its second GM location. The store sits within the 367,000 sq ft Stamford Quarter owned and operated by a joint venture between Trafford Council and Bruntwood.

Wigan: Leisure operator Stack has grown beyond its North East roots to launch its fun, food, drinks and music destination model across the North and Midlands. The name comes from its early schemes being created from shipping containers as ‘meanwhile uses’ but Stack has now advanced a number of projects in other settings: a listed building at Newcastle’s Pilgrim’s Quarter and a former M&S in Durham to name but two. Wigan Council greenlit the conversion of 48,000 sq ft at the Grand Arcade mall in August last year.

Trafford Centre: In January 2023, M&S lodged a building control application signalling its intention to upgrade from an 87,000 sq ft space at the M60 retail behemoth into Debenhams’ former 135,000 sq ft home, anchor of the Regent Crescent area of the centre, a move it completed in November of that year.

Liverpool City Region

Liverpool: An anchor store in Liverpool ONE, the downfall of Debs could have posed a major problem, releasing 185,000 sq ft into the local market. But landlord Grosvenor got on the front foot: by November 2021 it had requested permission to split the store, with 100,000 sq ft soon taken by active entertainment brand Gravity for a £10m venue including e-karting, bowling and urban golf on the upper floors. By summer 2023 Gravity had opened, and was soon joined by M&S, which took the remaining space in relocating its central Liverpool flagship from Church Street.

Gravity Max opened in August 2023. Credit: via Aver PR

Southport: Southport’s closure was announced in 2019 as embattled management tried to shuffle the deck. In 2021, a Preston-registered business called Firmcore Consulting bought the listed Lord Street building for £792,000, lining up a project involving shops, apartments, a bar/restaurant and an aparthotel. October 2022 saw consent given for the ground floor’s subdivision into four units. Further possibility was opened up last year, with Sefton Council and Historic England’s Lord Street Living project seeking to work with owners on residential conversions of upper floors in the area.

Cumbria

Barrow: The Debenhams store in Barrow has, like several other town centre shops, been saved by BAE Systems investing heavily in a programme to support local recruitment as it gears up to deliver submarine programmes. In plans approved in February, BAE will use Virtual Reality to create simulated environments for learning purposes as it looks to capture the imaginations of young people. The whole 70,000 sq ft Portland Walk store is accounted for by the project.

Carlisle: Place reported in November 2024 that the Lanes shopping centre is being marketed by Savills for LPA receiver Cushman & Wakefield, with more recent reports suggesting Praxis may be lined up to buy. As we reported in November, “much of the 107,800 sq ft former Debenhams space is still up for grabs at the mall, with Savills teasing that a “major international retailer” has already agreed terms for the 27,800 sq ft ground floor”. To date, Savills is remaining tight-lipped.

Workington: TK Maxx took over 22,500 sq ft of the former Debenhams at Washington Square in January 2023, agreeing a 15-year lease with asset manager Sovereign Centros. Continuing its drive to acquire town centre retail, Evolve Estates, part of M Core, bought the 250,000 sq ft Washington Square last autumn, and reports no current vacancies.

Cheshire

Ellesmere Port: Debenhams had been the anchor tenant at Coliseum Shopping Park, next to the outlet hotspot Cheshire Oaks. In 2023, Next submitted plans to upgrade from a neighbouring unit in a grand project designed by Corstorphine & Wright, but withdrew the application later that year. The store remains empty, although Primark has been reported as eyeing the site up.

Next nixed this proposed makeover for the Ellesmere Port store. Credit: planning documents

Warrington: The Golden Square unit stood empty from the closure of Debenham’s in 2021 up until October last year, when TJ Hughes stepped in to take the whole unit. This represented a return to the town for the discount retailer, having departed its Sankey Stret store in 2011 ahead of the development of boutique retail offer The Hive WA1.

Chester: With parts dating back to the 1780s, the 150,000 sq ft Browns of Chester complex, home to Debenhams between 1976 and 2021, could genuinely be described as iconic. Irish investor Martin Property Group, also owner of the nearby Grosvenor Centre, bought the Eastgate Street store, which had been marketed at £4m, in November 2022. Fittingly for a building so grand that it was referred to as the Harrods of the North, Harrods offshoot H Beauty is looking to open a 24,000 sq ft shop at ground floor as Martin splits the building up for smaller occupiers.

Lancashire

Blackpool: In November 2022, Blackpool Council and Ellandi, manager of the Houndshill shopping centre, trailed the arrival of Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group as the centre’s new anchor, taking over the former Debenhams’ space – at more than 100,000 sq ft, a considerable space to fill. Frasers opened a year later, with all the group brands you’d expect there, including Sports Direct, Flannels, and Evans Cycles.

Preston: When Place looked into the Fishergate shopping centre in early February, the shutters were very much down at the ex-Debenhams space – although a meanwhile use has now emerged, with social enterprise Emmaus taking the space for a giant charity shop. Fishergate’s retail offer as a whole feels part of a larger story now. Plans were floated in 2024 for Station East, a major commercial development on the Fishergate car park site, with a possible 530,000 sq ft of offices and other development at a location boasting excellent mainline railway access. Martin Property Group bought the whole complex for £8m in 2021.

Preston’s Fishergate is awaiting a larger development. Credit: Place North

Blackburn: As in Warrington, TJ Hughes has ridden to the rescue in Blackburn, with the confirmation coming late last year that the discount department store group will take the ground floor of what had been The Mall’s anchor store. Local property firm Adhan bought The Mall in 2022 for a reported £40m from Capital & Regional, which had bought it in 2004 for £120m, later spending a further £66m on expansion and refurbishment.

North Wales

Llandudno: Marks & Spencer seized the opportunity presented by Debenhams’ downfall to vacate its historic Mostyn Street town centre site in March 2022, relocating to Parc Llandudno. Within a year, M&S reported clothing sales up by 30% and food sales up by 75% in the retail park setting – the kind of ‘hard to argue with’ figures that have led the retailer to plan a similar move in Formby.

Wrexham: At 42,000 sq ft, Debenhams accounted for almost a third of space at Wrexham’s Eagles Meadow shopping centre. After being marketed unsuccessfully for three years, a change of use was granted last summer, with the intention of applicant Wrexham Shopping Mall being to split the building horizontally into two separate leisure attractions. It has now been confirmed that an AirHop Adventure & Trampoline Park will take one of the floors, with recruitment now underway for the attraction. .

Bangor: In August 2023, plans were revealed for a £30m health centre project at Bangor’s former Debenhams in the Menai Centre, with various public sector and health bodies working with Bangor University to secure an 18-month option agreement. Last summer, it was reported that council and health board sign-off was secured, with the scheme then going to the Welsh Government for approval to progress to the detailed design stage.

Beyond the region

Education as a direct user has accounted for some space, such as in Gloucester, while student accommodation has provided a fresh use in Leeds. Pure residential plays came forward in the likes of Southampton and Southsea.

Leisure has been big. As in Liverpool, Gravity took the former Wandsworth store in south-west London, while an established attractions operator took on the Hastings store for a ‘fun factory’ in 2022.

Residential towers are inked in at Bristol, but for now the ground floor will house a skatepark. Credit: Place North

The first quarter of 2025 has seen a flurry of activity. A meanwhile use was agreed at Bristol – where plans for demolition and 500 new-build apartments were approved last year – with Campus now operating a ground floor skatepark, complete with bar and DJs. Landsec has revealed its intentions to replace the Cardiff store with a mostly outdoor F&B and event space, while in Wakefield, plans have been lodged for a bowling alley upstairs with four split retail units below.

Conclusions?

The pool of potential occupiers is not large, especially for a whole store, and landlords and owners probably needed a combination of skill and luck to get a space away quickly, whether that was to a grower like The Range, M&S needing to improve on a tired neighbouring store, or TJ Hughes re-entering a town.

However, it should be said – generous terms from landlords accepting the new reality notwithstanding – that these sites are now mostly accounted for, one way or another, amid largely unforgiving economic circumstances

High street retail may have taken a kicking, but there’s clearly enough faith in the pull of a strong town centre to keep investors interested. Long live the reworked Debenhams.