R.I.P. Lewis’s – Hello Central Village!

Slightly depressing news about the end of an era in Liverpool with the demise of Lewis’s department store. They did well to hold on as long as they did though, in the face of the roads around it being ripped up for the best part of a year as part of the ‘Big Dig’ road improvements. On top of this not one, but two top class department stores opened up in Liverpool One, in Debenhams and Jon Lewis.

What next for the Lewis’s building then!? Well, planning permission has been granted for the following….

 
The front end of the building will be cleaned up considerably from the dirty, carbon stained stonework currently letting the building down.

Down the centre of the building will run a new, glass roofed central atrium cutting through the building out to a newly created courtyard with cafes and greenery. Should be a nice spot to sit and eat and drink.

Running down the back of Bold Street will be a new scheme called ‘The Boardwalk’ as part of a new development tying in to a new Liverpool Central Station complex. A whole new shopping district will be developed as part of this called ‘Central Village.

 Heres another viewpoint of what that courtyard at the back of Lewis’s is going to look like. You can see that part of the Central Village scheme will be two tall glass towers. These will be mixed use, office space, retail, apartments and no doubt the usual cafe’s and clothes shops on the ground floor. Apparantly a new Cinema is also planned for this.

Another view of the towers and the retail element of the scheme. A long water feature will run down the length of this scheme.

….looks pretty good to me.

A bit more info about the scheme: This is a 160 million pound masterplan by a company called Merepak taking in a large estate in mid-town Liverpool including the Lewis’s site, Central Station and the whole of the length of the back of Bold Street. Planning permission is passed and it’s now up to the developer to get started. Preparatory works have already begun on the back of Bold Street and to parts of Central Station.