Sheffield Retro: Changing face of Heart of the City shown in these then-and-now photos from 90s and 00s

Cambridge Street and the £480m Sheffield Heart of the City development have begun to truly take shape.

It's been eight years since the first hoardings went up on Furnival Gate, Charter Square and Wellington Street, and demolition began to clear dozens of aging buildings away.

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First the new HSBC officers were completed, then the first retail units returned to Cambridge Street, and then the flats behind the Coles Building are on sale. The Cambridge Street Collective food hall and Leah's Yard businesses are next.

Now, as the Heart of the City project approaches the final leg. newcomers to Sheffield might see the pedestrianised routes, the ceiling-to-floor glass-fronted shops, and the many new high-rise buildings - and not think of the journey it's taken to get here.

But not so long ago, Cambridge Street was home to a completely different set of shops, cafes and brutalist concrete buildings - nearly all of which were cleared away in 2017.

That's why it's shocking to look back at old photos of Cambridge Street and see how far it's come.

Below, The Star has delved into its archives for photos of Cambridge Street in its heydey, before the bulldozers arrived.

To help bring them to life, we've done our best to take fresh photos while standing in the same spot as the old ones so they can truly be appreciated side by side.

Keep an eye out for long-gone businesses like Pepe's, Chubby's, Grosvenor House Hotel, and - yes - even the lights still on at Cole Brothers.

Keep these in mind as new projects like Leah's Yard, the Cambridge Street Collective and the Radisson Blu Hotel approach their completion date and think on how much Sheffield has changed in the past 20 years.