Capital & Centric set to buy Littlewoods building
THE iconic art deco Littlewoods building on Edge Lane in Liverpool is being sold to a Manchester developer with plans for a hotel and offices.
Capital & Centric is buying the site, which has been empty for a decade, from the Homes and Communities Agency which inherited it from the North West Regional Development Agency.
In 2005 Urban Splash was commissioned to take forward the site but the plans did not progress.
Now Capital & Centric has a £16m plan for 50,000 sq ft of offices, 50,000 sq ft of business space and a 100-bed hotel. It submitted plans to Liverpool City Council yesterday and expects a positive decision in January at which point it will take control of the site.
Co-founder Tim Heatley said: “No bank debt is involved, we’ll be using our own resources and we’re in talks with the [European Union-backed] Chrysalis Fund for £6m.
“We’ve been talking about it for a year, it’s all been agreed but it doesn’t sit in our ownership until planning permission is granted.”
Neil Pickering, head of area at the HCA said: “The Littlewoods building is a key priority for the HCA. Capital & Centric’s proposal to save this iconic building and transform it to its former glory is great news for Liverpool.
“The developer’s vision for this huge art-deco complex complements HCA’s and Liverpool City Council’s wider plans to develop a number of strategic sites along Edge Lane, bringing vacant land and empty buildings back into use. This will play a key role in revitalising the area; creating real opportunities for growth.”
Mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson said: “This is a really positive step forward in bringing the historic Littlewoods building back into use. This important Liverpool landmark has lain empty for too long and we are determined to do all we can to secure its future.”
A short history of the Littlewoods Building (courtesy of the HCA)
The Littlewoods Building was completed in 1938, by Scottish Architect Gerald de Courcey Fraser, who also designed a number of department stores for Lewis’s and others.
The South Lancashire ‘Pevsner’ guide describes it as being ‘in the same vein as the celebrated factories on the Great West Road in London… outdazzling any of the buildings put up on the contemporary industrial estates’.
Sir John Moores, and his brother Cecil, built Littlewoods into the country’s largest family owned business empire, covering department chain stores and catalogue shopping, bequeathing a dynasty estimated at over £1bn.
From working class Salford stock, the Moores family were renowned as generous benefactors associated with famous local and national causes.
Liverpool John Moores University was renamed in his honour, and the Moores family controlled both Everton and Liverpool Football clubs during their 1970 and 80s glory years – Littlewoods actually sponsored the League cup for several years between 1986 and 1990.
The John Moores painting prize is described as ‘the Oscar of the British painting world’ by Royal Academy curator sir Norman Rosenthal, and famously brought David Hockney to the world’s attention in the 1960s.
The Littlewoods building’s vast, well lit internal spaces were enlisted in the national interest during WWII.
At the outbreak of the war the building’s mighty printing presses were used to print 17 million National Registration forms in just three days.
The floors of Halifax Bombers were assembled at the building, and it was also the nerve centre of MC5, the government agency that intercepted mail to break enemy codes.
Bomb shelters in the basement areas still contain artwork and graffiti on the walls dating from the 1941 Wartime Blitz and ‘Battle of the Atlantic’, when parts of Liverpool, its rail yards and docklands suffered more bombs per square mile than even London’s East End.
