TWO major retailers and a leisure operator are in the frame to occupy Swansea’s former Debenhams building but it might not fully open for two years, councillors have been told.
The provisional date of October 2026 was a “worst-case scenario”, council leader Rob Stewart said at a scrutiny meeting.
The flagship store at the Quadrant Shopping Centre closed in 2021 after Debenhams went into administration. The council then bought it, announcing completion of the purchase in April 2023.
There has been much speculation about who might move into it and the council has repeatedly said that discussions were taking place with prospective occupants. Proposals are also being drawn up to reconfigure the four-storey building to allow for more than one tenant.
A report before a council scrutiny panel this week said the aim was to start work at the store at the end of 2025 and target reopening the following October. Phil Holmes, the council’s head of planning and city regeneration, told the panel that potential occupiers and the council were now “very close to getting some ink on paper”.
Cllr Peter Black said this timetable had come as a surprise. “I understood we were much more imminent in getting that building occupied than we appear to be,” he said.
Mr Holmes said a long lead-in time was the nature of the retail industry and that hopefully the former anchor store would open sooner. Cllr Stewart said October 2026 was the worst-case scenario. “We would hope to be in a position where that (building) is open a lot sooner,” he said.
The Swansea Labour leader said he would like to be able to say who the prospective tenants were but was unable to until they gave permission. He said there could be an announcement early next year.
If the four-storey building was occupied by three companies, each would need its own electrical supply and access among other services.
A leisure operator might open in the evening, which would need access not currently provided within the shopping centre.
Cllr Robert Francis-Davies, cabinet member for investment, regeneration and tourism, said the prospective leisure operator was “very exciting” and had earmarked use of the upper two floors.
Cllr Black asked if asbestos might prove an issue as it had, he said, in the former Oceana nightclub building – now a brand new office development – on The Kingsway, and the former BHS and Miss Selfridge building on Oxford Street, which will be a public services hub and central library. Cllr Stewart said the Debenhams building was newer than the others and that he was confident asbestos wouldn’t be an issue. “Due diligence is being done on it,” he said. Councillors heard that its exterior would also be refreshed.
The panel was also given updates on several other big-ticket projects the council is leading or involved in. The updates included:
- Opening The Kingsway office building by the end of the year is a priority, and 80% of the space is under offer from tenants.
- Work to complete the unfinished multi-storey car park behind the Tesco superstore off Oystermouth Road, and other snagging work nearby, is due to finish by June next year.
- Proposals are being drawn up for 160 homes at the former St Thomas rail station site near the River Tawe.
- The Palace Theatre on High Street has just reopened as an office and events space, and plans for a public sector office hub at the former St David’s shopping centre have just been approved.
- Work to restore the laboratory building at the former Hafod-Morfa Copperworks is due to get under way very soon and a planning application has been submitted for the nearby engine house.
- The council is aiming for “practical completion” of the public services hub and central library, Oxford Street, at the end of 2025.
- Cllr Francis-Davies said these projects would drive footfall and therefore make the city centre more attractive to retailers. Urban centres everywhere, he said, had experienced a demise.
Panel chairman, Cllr Chris Holley, was keen to know more about the number of new jobs that would be created and whether the public sector ones were in fact new, or relocated, jobs. The panel will get further updates in due course.
“We need to understand the financial consequences of doing all this and what the benefits are likely to be,” said Cllr Holley.
