Western Morning News (Saturday)
Closed down M&S to become waterfront flats
A CLOSED Marks & Spencer store in Cornwall is set to be transformed into retail space and flats with direct water access.
Acorn Blue, part of Acorn Property Group, has announced it has acquired the site of the former Marks & Spencer’s store on Market Street in Falmouth with plans to create a new mixed-use residential scheme.
The housebuilder is also behind the £30million Liner building at Gyllyngvase Beach.
The old M&S site occupies prime water frontage, next to Prince of Wales Quay, looking out onto the largest residential mooring area in
Falmouth, with views to St Mawes.
It had been vacant for over two years following the closure of the store as part of a programme of rationalisation. For over a decade the majority of the site had been used by Marks and Spencer for storage, making it under-utilised and increasingly an inefficient use of resource, Acorn Blue explained.
The regeneration of the building will see retail return to the site and provide homes for Falmouth.
A spokesperson for the company said: “Many high streets are facing challenges, further exacerbated by coronavirus, and with the building needing to be stripped back to structure in order to remove asbestos, there had been little prospect of a retail business re-opening at the location in its existing form.”
The current proposal for the redevelopment of the high street site sees the retail component retained and brought back into use, while converting the upper floors and waterfront areas into residential units, with the creation of direct water access for residents.
The site will provide up to 16 residential units, comprising a mix of two, three and four-bedroom houses, duplexes and apartments, with outside space, boat storage, car parking and a communal courtyard garden.
Having successfully exchanged on the site at the close of 2020, Acorn Blue will now progress with planning for the site, which it anticipates being submitted this spring.
Andrew Strathdee, development director at Acorn Blue, said: “We are delighted to have successfully exchanged on this prime high street location and excited to be able to once more bring the site back to full use, in due course, bringing retail and people back to this central Falmouth location.”