Augur to increase hotel rooms at Liverpool Lewis’s 

The redevelopment of the grade two-listed former department store has been fleshed out further with the unveiling of plans for a 146-bedroom hotel across vacant space on the first and second floors. 

Augur Group’s plans for a hotel within part of Liverpool’s former Lewis’s store follow proposals earlier this year for part of the building to be transformed into a mixed-use leisure, retail, and commercial destination. 

In August, the developer sought consent flexible consent for 68,000 sq ft of empty space in the basement, ground and sixth floor, with potential uses ranging from a brewery and restaurant to escape rooms and mini golf.  

Augur has now submitted a separate application to covert former retail space into 146 hotel rooms, a scheme designed by 3D Reid that would more than double the amount of hotel space within the complex. 

To learn more about the scheme, search for reference number 23F/3017 on Liverpool City Council’s planning portal. 

There is already a 126-bedroom Adagio Aparthotel within the building, located on the upper floors of the Ranleigh Street portion of the L-shaped complex. 

The redevelopment of Lewis’s has been in the works for more than a decade and has taken many twists and turns along the way. 

The original Lewis’s store was first opened at the same city centre location in 1856 and expanded through the decades. The current building was constructed around 1947 after most of the original store was destroyed in The Blitz. 

Augur acquired the 400,000 sq ft landmark in 2017. 

Before the site changed hands, developers Merepark and Ballymore had advanced plans for a scheme called Central Village on the land between Lewis’s and Central Station with restaurant operators including Nando’s signed up. 

However, the project suffered numerous delays due to the 2008 crash and never advanced. 

In 2021, Augur was given consent to significantly reduce the amount of retail space within the building to accommodate a range of leisure uses. 

In the same year, the developer announced its intention to deliver 200 apartments as part of the scheme. No planning application for this part of the project has been submitted. 

Augur was contacted for comment.