The huge former home of Debenhams in Cardiff city centre remains empty 18-months after the department store closed its doors for the final time. The three-storey building which housed Wales' flagship branch of the over 200-year-old chain is still gathering dust in St David's Centre with no plans put forward for its future.
The Cardiff branch of the company shut up shop in May 2021 – four months after the company announced all stores would shut. In January 2021 online retailer Boohoo acquired the 244-year-old department store chain in a £55m deal that resulted in the closure of all stores and resulted in the department store disappearing from the high street with the loss of up to 12,000 jobs.
While Debenhams fans can still access some stock online, the Debenhams brand which was a fixture on high streets up and down the country for centuries is long gone. You can read more Cardiff stories here.
Read more: All the big changes at St David's shopping centre
The now-empty in the St David's Centre and was a prominent fixture of the retail sector in the capital. Having operated in the capital for centuries Debenhams was one of the anchor stores considered when developing the St Davids Centre in 2007. The store occupied 65,000 sq ft of space in the shopping centre comprising of three retail floors as well as back of house space.
In January 2022, the shopping centre said that it would update shoppers “as soon as we can”, but a year on there are no firm details on what could potentially occupy the huge space in the middle of the Welsh capital.
Also in January of the same year there was a minor fire in the empty Debenhams unit of the shopping centre. Shoppers and staff were evacuated as smoke could be seen throughout the lower levels of the centre. St David's confirmed that the smoke originated from the Debenhams unit.
In 2021 there was speculation that billionaire retail entrepreneur Mike Ashley could take over the space by combining all of his business interests in the city – including House of Fraser, Sports Direct, and Flannels – under one roof. However it has now been confirmed that Flannels will instead take over the site of the former Topshop building on Queen Street.
Cardiff Council said any questions about the site are best answered by the owners of the building, but attempts to glean any information from them has thus far proved unsuccessful. St David's have directed questions to the owners of the space - believed to be a joint venture between Landsec and British Land - however they have also yet to confirm what the plans are for the space.
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