Hotel may be added to Cork's iconic Roches Stores/Debenhams store by new owners

The Co Mayo-based sports and leisure wear company will occupy the key, front centre portion of the large premises, integrating the atrium (put in 2004 during a major revamp while still trading as Roches Stores) and will have two other retail units facing onto the city’s main shopping boulevard, St Patrick’s Street, directly opposite the new, well-received Mango, and also the 2023 arrival Flannels at the old Eason property.

Taken together, these three, plus some smaller arrivals and revamps, have started a reinvigoration of St Patrick Street which was hard hit by a double whammy of a move to online shopping and then the covid pandemic and lockdowns.

It will be further bulwarked by the redevelopment and enlargement of the Penneys store on the other side of Winthrop Street facing Dunnes, recently granted approval by An Bord Pleanála for a €60m investment to grow the Primark store’s size to 54,000 sq ft, spanning almost an entire city block and including a presence on Cook Street and on Oliver Plunkett Street.

In advance of the new occupiers Intersport Elverys opening on the street in the high profile and much-loved ‘Roches Stores’ 1920s-built store, earmarked for Q2 2024 and taking as much as 40,000 sq ft for its own presence, the company is meeting with Cork City Council this side of Christmas to outline its wider plans for the balance of the 160,000 sq ft property which it acquired earlier this year in a c €12m purchase via Cushman & Wakefield, acting for Debenhams receivers.

Sources say the building’s new owners have employed architects Henry J Lyons who have delivered a number of key buildings for Cork (mostly offices) to work on the overall vision, new uses, and users of the very large property which links into a multi-storey car park and Merchants Quay Shopping Centre, as well as having a long profile along pedestrianised Maylor Street.

In advance of the staged works, protective fencing has gone up around the St Patrick Street section, to allow some necessary repair on the facade on its upper floors and under the signature copper dome.

Reports that the reborn building will have café/terrace style seating on the wide pavement in front of the old Roches Stores/Debenhams have been dismissed as unfounded by sources familiar with the overall plans, but it’s understood that there may be provision for food and beverage units at the rear along Maylor Street, also re-establishing a link to Merchant’s Quay.

Being looked at is a hotel of up to 180 rooms also at the back/top, by the food and beverage units, subject to planning.

If a hotel is added (others who also viewed the Debenhams store while on the market considered uses such as a hotel, apartments, cultural uses, etc), it may join other new hotel/hospitality arrivals, such as on Morrisons Island (Premier Hotel’s €30m 187-bed as part of a part of a €48m mixed use investment to include offices), Camden Quay where a 201-bed Marriott/Moxy Hotel and Residence Inn is under advanced construction, with others cleared in planning at South Mall, Sullivan’s Quay (220 beds, via BAM) and South Terrace, with approval for a 103-bed apart-hotel.

Also approved planning are hotels on the Airport Hill, and most recently at Jacobs Island, Mahon, where Hibernia Star/McCarthy Developments (who delivered residential accommodation there over a 20-year time span) have just been cleared by An Bord Pleanála for a 165-bed hotel, designed by O’Mahony Pike, plus over 10,000 sq m of office buildings overlooking Cork harbour and the south city ring road/N40, in a development put at up to €100m.