Debenhams Sheffield: 'People's Store' plan for department store on The Moor

Debenhams in Sheffield city centre could still come back to life as a ‘People’s Store’ selling second hand items, The Star has learned.

Anthony Lorenz, spokesman London firm MHA, which owns the building, said the firm was “working up something” and hoped to make an announcement within a month.

The news will be welcome three years after the department store on The Moor closed. But it follows a series of plans over the last two years that failed to come to fruition.

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The Star last year reported the People’s Store proposal as featuring an ‘Ebay you can touch and feel’ - people selling belongings from stalls including furniture, mobile phones or even World War One relics.

It would be backed by a website accepting bids on items and a service to transport them to the building and deliver them to buyers. Alongside this would be niche retailers, craftspeople and makers on longer term deals and even a food hall.

Mr Lorenz said then he was confident it would be popular due to the recession, which he believed would deepen in 2024. The only real competition was from The Moor Market, he added. But a target to open before Christmas was missed.

MHA snapped up the building for £1.5m in March 2021. The store closed two months later.

The update comes as the former Debenhams at Meadowhall is set to reopen by the end of October as a Sports Direct and Frasers department store.