Opening the doors on future
First look inside town’s John Lewis store,
IT is less than two months before shoppers will be going through the doors of the new John Lewis shop in Cheltenham .
And the Echo has taken a first look inside the former Beechwood Shopping Centre.
The site is still very much a building site, but the huge 115,000sq ft space, which stretches from High Street to Albion Street has been transformed.
There are some parts shoppers will recognise because they have been kept from the old shopping centre, including pillars that link the ground and first floors of the two-level site.
And the escalators are in the same area too.
But that’s about it. Pretty much everything else looks different, with the emphasis being on plenty of natural sunlight getting into the building.
The glass-dominated front entrance has been visible now for many months but today revealed for the first time that there is a glass roof above the back section of the first floor.
Just above the escalators are glass panels on the wall that refract the light.
Much of the inside of the shop is white and modern lighting makes the space seem even brighter.
John Lewis believes it will be a welcoming space that customers will spent time in and 300 staff will enjoy working in.
Considering the company is spending £23million on the project, it must believe the shop will be sustainable.
Branch manager Martin Bundy said: “We believe very strongly in what we’re trying to do. We’re really confident.”
He said marrying quality products people wanted to buy with expert advice from the store’s partners, or workers, should prove to be a winning combination.
Shoppers will be enter the store from High Street or Albion Street. If they go in via the former, they will walk into the beauty hall, where there will be 18 units.
Then they will see women’s clothes on the right hand side and menswear on the left hand side. Children’s clothes and the haberdashery area will be at the back.
If people head up the escalator to the first floor and go straight on, they will come to the 130-covers restaurant, toilets and baby-changing area.
If they turn to their left and head back towards the High Street, they will go through the home design and furniture areas before reaching the 70-cover Huffkins tea room.
On the left hand side as they make their way from the escalators to Huffkins will be bedding and linen areas. On the opposite side of the store will be flooring and items such as TVS and computers.
Mr Bundy added: “I’m very excited. It’s a wonderful transformation and this will be a modern department store.”
There is, however, plenty for construction firm Mace to do before it hands the store over to John Lewis late next month.
It will then bring in and display the merchandise before spending a week training staff.
The doors will open to members of the public on October 18. At the moment, about half of the employees needed have been recruited.
Mr Bundy said the company felt it would help to draw more shoppers into the town centre, helping Cheltenham’s economy generally.