Plans have been revealed to create 30 new apartments on the upper floors of the former BHS department store in Southport town centre.
A planning application has been submitted to Sefton Council for a ‘change of use’ from a vacant retail store at 17-23 into 30 two-bed apartments on floors 1, 2, 3 and 4.
JSM Company Group, based on Fleet Street in Liverpool, is behind the scheme.
Their company Prestige Stay will run the building as an apart hotel.
Prestige Stay Apart Hotels already operates over 70 serviced apartments within Liverpool city centre.
The ground floor will be split into five units, with two of the spaces already let.
The landmark site was sold for half a million pounds at auction in July.
BHS Southport was one of the chain’s 164 stores which controversially went into administration in April 2016, resulting in the loss of 11,000 jobs nationwide. As well as Southport, BHS also lost shops in Liverpool, St Helens, Warrington and Widnes. The closures ended an 88 year presence on the high street.
Since the closure, the 53,339 sq ft building remained empty for a few months before being occupied by the short-term Winter Wonderland store on a rolling contract.
Allsop auctioneers sold the ‘freehold department store and development opportunity’ building for £500,000.
The firm said that ‘the property may lend itself to a variety of alternative uses and redevelopment, subject to obtaining all the necessary consents’.
David Myers, who runs David H Myers Opticians in Southport, told the BBC: “Retail has to change, we haven’t got a choice. Multi-storey shops won’t exist in Southport in future.
“We’ve got to get this town looking right again.
“The BHS building is lovely and has real potential. It needs a change of use, for instance there could be a hotel or residential on the upper floors and then split the ground floor for smaller, individual shops with realistic rents and rates.”
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