Plans have emerged to turn parts of Newcastle’s Eldon Square shopping centre into flats – but its huge, empty Debenhams store is not considered suitable.
Councillors heard on Friday morning that city bosses are looking at the possibility of creating new residential developments in the city centre retail hub. Eldon Square suffered badly during the Covid pandemic, losing one of its anchor tenants when Debenhams closed and seeing its former owner Intu collapse into administration.
With the likes of Topshop, Dorothy Perkins, and Burton also going, it was announced last year that Newcastle City Council and the centre’s new owners would be launching an urgent review into its future. Michelle Percy, the council’s director of place, revealed to the local authority’s audit committee on Friday that talks had been held over potential housing developments within Eldon Square.
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Ms Percy said that some empty units had been successfully let at the centre to new retailers since the end of lockdown, with footfall on the increase and business’ confidence returning. But she admitted that the city centre’s residential offering is "not at its best" and the council is thinking about ways to change that.
While the vacant Debenhams site might seem an obvious option for conversion into apartments, Ms Percy indicated that would be an unlikely prospect. The council chief said the former flagship store "does not lend itself well" to becoming housing and that developers would find it "far more expensive" to renovate the site than it would be to start another project from scratch elsewhere.
It has also been suggested in the past that empty shops could be repurposed to host cultural exhibitions and activities. The city council holds a 40% stake in Eldon Square and reported in 2020 that it saw the value of its holding plummet by more than £50m – from £145m to just £93m.
Ms Percy had previously predicted that the devastating impact of lockdown could see almost half of Eldon Square left vacant and there were fears that another of its biggest brands, John Lewis, could leave too – but its Newcastle site was ultimately not included in a series of store closures around the country.
