New uses for old Debenhams around the country including Meadowhall
Disused stores have been converted into shops, flats and medical centres
There have been a number of plans suggested for the empty Debenhams store in Sheffield city centre over the years.
One of the proposals mooted for the old five-storey building at the top of The Moor was to demolish it and replace it with two towers of up to 34 storeys containing shops, leisure facilities, flats, offices and a hotel.
Sheffield City Council gave ‘pre-application approval’ for the scheme in 2023.
Other suggestions have included transforming it into a hospital and even running it as a department store again, but no concrete plans have yet emerged.
The store closed in 2021 after the retail chain went bust. The same year it was bought by a company called Lewisham MHA 5 Ltd for £1.5m but that firm went into liquidation.
It had tried to find a tenant, attempted to sell the building and proposed a ‘People’s Store’ selling second hand goods.
The store was put up for auction with a guide price of £850,000 but failed to sell.
Then it was snapped up by by NewRiver, which runs The Moor, just before it was due to be sold at auction again, with a reserve price of just £1.
While Debenhams in Sheffield city centre still stands empty, down the road in Meadowhall, the old Debenhams reopened as Sport Direct upstairs and Frasers department store below.
In Manchester, a former flagship Debenhams is set to have a £68.5m revamp.
The plan will see the Grade II-listed Rylands building on Market Street turned into a shopping arcade and offices.
In Bristol, the ex-store was transformed into ‘Shredenhams’ pop-up skatepark, cafe and bar, with retro arcade games, pool, and table tennis.
The former Debenhams in Liverpool ONE shopping centre was turned into a retail and entertainment complex split between Gravity MAX and a Marks & Spencer in 2023.
Marks and Spencer also took over the former Debenhams in Manchester Trafford Centre and Leeds White Rose Shopping Centre, both opening in 2023.
In Brighton, Ingka Group, which owns IKEA, acquired the Churchill Square Shopping Centre for £145m in November 2023.
It turned the former Debenhams anchor unit into a city-format store, which opened in August 2025.
The old Debenhams in the Eastgate Shopping Centre in Basildon is being transformed into a health and diagnostic centre, dubbed a ‘mini-hospital’ opening later this year.
The former store in Carmarthen is also being turned into a multi-service health and wellbeing hub, slated to open in early 2027.
Meanwhile, plans are progressing to place a similar community health and wellbeing centre in the empty Debenhams unit at the Menai Centre in Bangor.