First Tenants Announced For Refurbished Arding & Hobbs
As redevelopment of Grade II listed local landmark nears completion
Artist’s cutaway of the refurbishments. Picture: ardingandhobbs.london
March 27, 2023
Third Space health clubs and the Albion & East bar chain have been confirmed as the first occupants of Clapham Junction’s Arding & Hobbs, the iconic former department store undergoing a major refurbishment due to be finished this year
Developer W.RE last week reported that Third Space’s fitness classes and gym will take 28,000 square foot over three floors, while Albion & East’s planned ground floor restaurant and bar “will once again draw visitors into the landmark historic building”.
Albion & East run several neighbourhood bars across London serving food and drink throughout the day. Each bar has its own individual identity, design and local vibe at locations including Brixton, Ealing and Hackney. Third Space offer London-wide luxury health clubs with the nearest existing branch currently in Wimbledon.
Artist’s impression of the roof terrace. Picture: ardingandhobbs.london
London based property developer and asset manager WR.E, the outfit behind developments such as the St Pancras Campus and 160 Borough High Street, also revealed some of the finer details of the huge refurbishment ahead of its reopening, “By exposing industrial warehouse doors, unearthing the original mosaic floor, and showcasing years of layered paintwork, we’re working with the building’s existing fabric to reveal its past to visitors today.”
During the Covid-19 pandemic Arding & Hobbs closed its doors and never reopened as a department store. W.RE had bought the building in 2018 from British Land Co for a reported £48 million, with the news that that it would redevelop the 97,000 square foot store for mixed use retail and high-end office space.
Meanwhile global international real estate company Cushman & Wakefield, the development’s specialist advisors and strategists, explain that when Arding & Hobbs reopens there will be seven floors of flexible retail and workspace celebrating “the unique history of the building whilst equipping its tenants for modern-day work, rest and play”.
As well as a 4,500 square foot biodiverse green roof and terrace with views, there will be a 24-metre-high lightwell while ceiling heights will soar to 5.6 metres. According to Cushmand & Wakefield the new space has been reimagined “to provide an engaging mix of retail and leisure uses and 90,000 sq ft of contemporary workspace”.
Designs have been created by London-based architects Stiff + Trevellion. “Arding & Hobbs is a department store whose civic presence has been eroded by unsympathetic additions and failing tenants,” said the architectural practice. “Our refurbishment will return it to its former place in the community, removing a 1970s canopy, restoring old features – clock tower, barrel vaults and stained-glass dome – and adding new, in the form of a CLT-framed roof pavilion clad in scalloped brass. Inside, workspaces will sit above a base of retail, reinforcing an upward shift in the area’s popularity to business tenants.”
According to Historic England, the firm Arding & Hobbs actually started as a drapery shop in Wandsworth High Street in 1867, moving to the more prestigious Clapham Junction site in the early 1900s after the original buildings on the plot were destroyed by fire in 1909.
The current buildings, which were erected in 1910 in Edwardian Baroque style, became the largest and grandest department store built south of the Thames.
Allders ran the store from the 1970s until the group went into administration and was subsequently broken up and sold in 2005. Arding & Hobbs was then divided into branches of Debenhams, who vacated the site during the pandemic, and the still existing TK Maxx.
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