Liverpool’s former John Lewis hits market
Located off Williamson Square in the city centre, the George Henry Lee Building offers 153,000 sq ft of retail space across nine floors.
HilcoGlobal has been appointed as receiver to sell the 250-year leasehold of 20-48 Basnett Street, once home to department store John Lewis.
While L&G owns the freehold of the property, the leasehold has been held by Rapid Property Investments since 2008, according to HM Land Registry.
The company was placed into receivership by fixed charge holder OSF last year.
The building has been vacant for several years. The only tenant is Poundland, which occupies 14,000 sq ft across the ground floor and basement.
In 2019, a proposal from Niboco to redevelop the building into a 157-bedroom hotel was approved by Liverpool City Council. However, that consent has since lapsed.
Niboco and Rapid Property Investments are both headed up by Christine and Dominik Bolza, according to Companies House.
The George Henry Lee Building was built in the mid-1800s and started out as a bonnet store before being sold to the John Lewis Partnership in 1940.
John Lewis ceased trading from the Basnett Street store in 2008 and relocated to a 260,000 sq ft complex within Grosvenor’s Liverpool One.
We can only hope that we get a quality buyer for this lovely building which has sadly been mostly vacant for a number of years now. It`s next to the new Flannels which is looking excellent after being refurbished, and the whole area needs a re-think as , nearby, M&S will be moving soon and that is a massive footprint, to be honest all of Williamson Square needs a quality uplift and re-design.
By Anonymous
Liverpool City Council need to address this once thriving area and use this fabulous building – which could thrive again! Along with Williamson Square and the links to the museum and St John’s Gardens. For a city that loves to shop and is a tourist destination – there seems to be no linking of areas – why have we only got one department store? Why aren’t we offering deals to stores we haven’t got Fenwick, Liberty etc? Time and time again I hear the staff in Trafford Centre Selfridges say it takes more money than the city centre store despite not stocking Chanel and the higher end brands – this is attributed to the ‘scouse pound’! Why can’t we recognise this and attract a quality offering to compliment Flannels?
By Mary Smiley
Does Liverpool Council have a city centre development strategy team, if so shouldn`t they be actively working with agents to identify prospective occupiers for this store, and thus be guiding the direction the city wants to take in providing quality shopping areas.
I think Anthropologie could fit well here, it`s like their Belfast store, so why not target them.
Surely no one is going to take all the M&S store , so the section behind the old Church Street building should be flattened and then re-designed with buildings fronting on to a bigger Williamson Square with continental type bars , hotels and shopping.
By Anonymous
@anonymous rather naively assumes that Liverpool council possesses the qualities of vision, proactivity, commerciality and nous that have eluded it these last few years.
By Sceptical
‘Hits’ market. Strange expression!!!
By Eric
The title says John Lewis but the picture is George Henry Lee
By Anonymous
Hi Anonymous! John Lewis operated out of the George Henry Lee building from 1940 until 2008. Best – Julia
By Julia Hatmaker
So every vacant building in the city centre seems becoming hotels. What homes for people 👍
By Mark pike
re the poster at 8.11am, there are a number of examples of city-centre conversions into residential, in addition others are planned such as the upper floors of the ex Waterstones on Bold St.
I agree we need more residential in town and it also provides custom for the shops, but not all vacated shops and offices lend themselves to residential , but do well as hotels etc.
Meanwhile it`s good to see a number of high-rise developments finally on site over at Leeds St/Scotland Rd providing appropriate city -centre living.
By Anonymous
Not becoming student flats then
By Dino Carlucci
Make back into a great store that it was instead of another hotel that we don’t really need
By Anonymous
Within the Williamson Square locality, can we have someone with credibility look at this building along with the surrounding area of Williamson Square and treat this as an ‘entity’ such as Paul Monahan who Steve Rotherham seconded into the City to look at Liverpool’s Architecture and built Environment . Let’s not have another fiasco like the Queen Square development and Councillors with the token gesture of a bit of a fountain and yet another competition announced for Williamson Square by a Councillor. Can we have the Sterling Prize winning help of Paul Monahan, a West Derby lad now with his own practice in London. Steve Rotherham, I’m pleading with you to get involved before a Councillor who likes to dabble in a bit of design, making the decision.
By Meryl Kelbrick
Wasn’t TJ hughes on London road meant to be moving to here ?
By ..
George Henry Lee was part of the John Lewis partnership every store had a name like Cole.brothers Sheffield ect it was only rebranded to John Lewis Liverpool as its now known as today they should of stayed there I worked there for 13 years
By Paul hughan