Supporting boost for Gloucester city centre

Supporting the regeneration of Gloucester city centre, lawyers from Harrison Clark Rickerbys have acted for the University of Gloucestershire in buying the former Debenhams site, intended to be a new city centre campus.

The former store, one of the largest retail spaces in the city, will be redeveloped to include teaching  and ancillary facilities, bringing students into the city centre. The development will provide additional space for students and staff in a city centre location with great transport links and new student accommodation, generating a positive economic impact for the city.

Morgan West of the Cheltenham real estate team, who completed the transaction alongside Mark Carter and Andrew Walker, said: “It is great to see such a prominent building repurposed in a way that will bring people into the city centre. We were delighted to be part of the University’s plans for this key site.”

Mark Carter, head of real estate for HCR in Cheltenham, said: “This change of use is an indication of how our high streets will evolve, post-pandemic, and it is a great opportunity to innovate and develop facilities which will re-energise the city centre.”

The impact of the pandemic on the way we work and what we need from our workplaces is covered in HCR’s Future Workspaces report, which also addresses the future of the high street and how what we have learned over the last year will affect how we live and work in the future. You can read it here. 

Harrison Clark Rickerbys has more than 600 staff and partners based at offices in Cheltenham, Birmingham, Cambridge, Cardiff, Hereford, London, Thames Valley, Worcester, and the Wye Valley, who provide a complete spectrum of legal services to both business and private clients, regionally and nationwide. The firm also has a number of highly specialist sector-specific teams, including technology, finance and financial services, defence, security and the forces, health and social care, education, agricultural and rural affairs, and construction.