At either end of a stretch of Liverpool’s Lime Street between Elliot Street and Ranelagh Street sit the former Lewis’s department store and ABC Cinema – could a £5bn project give both buildings a new lease of life? Tony McDonough reports
Commercial property agents are rarely slow to spot an opportunity and so it is with Avison Young who are making a fresh attempt to sell Liverpool’s former Lewis’s department store for £18m.
It is surely no coincidence this latest move comes just weeks after Liverpool City Council appointed a design team from a London architectural practice to start work on a proposed £5bn transformation of Liverpool Central Station and the surrounding area.
Liverpool has enjoyed a significant renaissance in the past 20 years or so. Projects such as Liverpool ONE, the arena and convention centre, Princes Dock and Liverpool Waters, have brought a new modern and fresh feel in and around the waterfront.
However, in the area between Lime Street Station and Central Station that sense of renewal feels, at best, patchy. Landscaping in front of Lime Street Station is impressive but beyond that the area feels tired and unloved.
This is particularly true of the stretch of Lime Street between Elliot Street and Ranelagh Street. A regeneration project completed around a decade ago along one side, between the Crown and Vines pubs, feels brutal and is not loved.
And bookending the other side of this stretch are two Grade II-listed buildings that are loved but have become symbols of the area’s decline – the former ABC Cinema, owned by the city council, and the Lewis’s building, owned by Auger Group.
The latter is in a far better condition than the former and has two active tenants – the 126-bedroom Adagio aparthotel, accounting for 86,000 sq ft, and Pure Gym, occupying 27,107 sq ft. There is around 200,000 sq ft of available space.
Completed in 1856, it was purpose-built as a department store until the rapidly-changing retail market saw it close for the final time in 2010. In 2009 it was included in plans for a £105m mixed-use development for the wider area.
Called Central Village it would have occupied a large slice of land between Lewis’s and Bold Street at the back of Central Station and would have included apartments, restaurants and a new Odeon Cinema. Lewis’s itself was refurbished but the main scheme never went ahead.
As well as its history as a department store, Lewis’s is also home to the Jacob Epstein’s statue of a naked man above the main entrance. Known locally as ‘Dickie Lewis’ the statue is immortalised in the song In My Liverpool Home in which people “meet under a statue exceedingly bare”.
In contrast the ABC has been empty and at risk of dereliction since it last closed its doors as a cinema in 1998, with a showing of the 1940s classic Casablanca. The cinema had first opened as The Forum in 1931.
In 2016 developer Ion, which oversaw the rebuild of the other side of Lime Street, proposed a new music and entertainment venue for the site – but it came to nothing. Now it sits, decaying and easy prey to vandals.
However now, in what is hoped will not be another false dawn, plans are being put together for a £5bn transformation of the whole area around Central Station, taking in Lewis’s and the ABC.
London-based architectural practice Hawkins\Brown is tasked with developing a Strategic Regeneration Framework (SRF) for the project, covering an 86-acre area.
City region Mayor Steve Rotheram wants to use plans for the proposed high-speed rail line between Liverpool and Manchester as the catalyst for the Central Station scheme.
Both the Combined Authority and the city council are keen to push ahead with the regeneration plans for the 150-year-old station and the surrounding streets regardless of whether the rail line is built.
They see the station, which has its main entrance on Ranelagh Street, as a major gateway between the retail core of the city centre and the fast-growing Knowledge Quarter.
Mr Rotheram, who is seeking £2.5bn from the Government, has persuaded Chancellor Rachel Reeves to include the scheme in a test programme for how the Government assesses the business cases for major infrastructure projects.
“This is a chance for us to think bigger about the future of one of the key front doors to Liverpool – creating a greener, safer and better connected gateway that works for residents, businesses and the millions of people who pass through it every year,” he said.
Avison Young has referenced the project in its marketing material for the Lewis’s building. It is seeking offers of around £18m for the freehold interest of the site.
The new owner would enjoy a guaranteed annual income of £800,000 in rent from the existing tenants, representing a net initial yield of 4.44%. Adagio Hotels’ lease is set to expire in 2043 and Pure Gym’s in 2032.
David Winterbottom, principal, capital markets at Avison Young, said: “The property presents a truly unrivalled opportunity for mixed-use redevelopment, offering exceptional flexibility for a wide range of future uses.
“Positioned at the intersection of Liverpool’s thriving retail, office and innovation districts, the site benefits from significant planning potential across residential, leisure, commercial and cultural sectors.”
Liverpool City Council is the owner of the ABC. Cllr Nick Small, Cabinet Member for Growth and Economy, told LBN the authority recognised the importance of the building “both in terms of its heritage and its position at a key gateway into the city centre”.
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He added: “The site forms part of the wider Liverpool Central regeneration project, and the council’s long-term ambition is to bring the building back into active and sustainable use in a way that supports the continued transformation of this part of the city.
“A number of options have been explored over time, and the Council continues to engage with potential partners and operators to identify a viable scheme that will secure the building’s future.
“In the meantime, steps have been taken to ensure the building is safe and secure while this work continues.”