Plans brewing to bring a new coffee store as Waterside works begin
CONTRACTS ALSO IMMINENT FOR ‘PREMIUM NATIONAL RETAILER’
PLANS have been revealed for a new coffee store as part of a city centre shopping complex. Lincoln’s High Street will gain a new shop as part of redevelopment plans for the Waterside centre.
Work is under way on the new addition, which is part of a £1m redevelopment from the shopping centre’s owners, Wykeland Group and Lincolnshire Co-op. It comes as part of a plan to create a more attractive and welcoming frontage to the centre from the High Street.
Two units on High Street have been acquired to form part of the centre, enabling improvement works to the frontage. Contracts are also now being concluded for what is being described as a “premium national retailer new to Lincoln” to occupy one of the units.
The outlet will be operated by Lincolnshire-based Seven Districts Coffee, which owns coffee shops in the Lincolnshire villages of Welton and Nettleham, and the successful CASK Kitchen restaurant in Lincoln. It was co-founded by Ellis Purvis and Ben Southall, whose shared passion for high-quality roasted coffee has seen the company go from strength to strength over the past five years.
Mr Southall said: “As a proud and established independent Lincolnshire business, we’re delighted to be at the heart of the exciting investment which is being made at Waterside. We already have a presence in Lincoln with CASK Kitchen and we’d been thinking about a new venue in the city centre for a while when this opportunity presented itself.
“We were impressed with Wykeland and the Co-op’s vision for Waterside and we think Seven Districts is a perfect fit for the centre. “Alongside our popular range of coffees, we’ll also be serving a variety of grab and go food, including bagels and buddha bowls. We’re confident our seating area will create a new destination in the city centre and bring more visitors into Waterside.”
The shop will take up one of two recently acquired stores at the front of the Waterside centre, with plans to widen the access to Waterside North. The changes will create a better pedestrian flow by the riverside to the lower ground floor and across the river into the Cornhill Quarter.
Planning permission was granted recently for changes to the two newly-acquired units and the conversion of the upper floors into five apartments. These works will begin in the next few weeks.