Yet another iconic Oxford Street store is off to the big high street in the sky.
Following in the footsteps of Big Topshop and Debenhams comes House of Fraser, who’ll be shutting their flagship department store in January 2022.
The shop has been served notice by its landlords and forced to leave the site, which is set to be redeveloped into six floors of offices, with a rooftop restaurant, a pool and gym in the basement and a coy nod to its former life with retail on the ground floor. The redevelopment project will take two years and it’s thought that there might be some hope for House of Fraser. It could return to a smaller part of the building once the work is over.
Built in 1937, the House of Fraser building at 318 Oxford Street traded under the name DH Evans until 2001 and is one of many new office developments on London’s most famous shopping high street.
Central London retailers took a heavy hit during the pandemic. Empty stores on Oxford Street have risen by a fifth since the start of 2021. The old Debenhams building is currently being transformed into a ‘high-quality Grade A flexible workspace’ while Topshop will become an IKEA, set to open in autumn 2023, complete with a meatball-serving restaurant. Finally, somewhere to panic buy lingonberry jam before a night on the Soho lash.
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