Mystery of Plymouth House of Fraser closure solved

Plymouth’s enormous House of Fraser store is now fully open again with the cause of its closure being revealed as a power outage following a flood. The Dingles restaurant on the top floor of the building is serving customers again after having been closed for three weeks.

The six-story city centre building shut unexpectedly on October 14 but partially reopened on October 23. Only the first three storeys were back in action with the third and fourth floors remaining off limits, as did the Dingles Restaurant and the customer toilets on the top-most fifth floor.

PlymouthLive contacted Frasers Group, which runs House of Fraser, but has still yet to receive any comment, let alone an explanation about what caused the shutdown. But now Sheffield-based Massarella Catering Group Ltd, which operates the top-floor restaurant, has confirmed that it reopened on November 1 and has said why the department store building was closed.

Daniela Massarella, marketing and food development director at Massarella Catering Group, said: “The Restaurant is now back open after a three-week closure. There was an issue with the power supply to the store and the restaurant had to remain closed whilst power was restored to the fifth floor which was resolved on Friday last week.”

She added: “There was a flood in the basement which damaged the power supply in the store. We employ 19 team members in the restaurant and I can confirm that all the team were paid as normal during the closed down period and our team are delighted to be back to work this week.”

During the building’s closure signs were placed in windows saying the store was shut due to “unforeseen circumstances” . They were later replaced with ones that said the store had reopened but the cafe and restaurant were unable to operate and customer toilets were unavailable. Normal service appears to how have been fully restored.

The building - with entrances on Armada Way, New George Street and Royal Parade - is currently on sale for a knock-down £3m after a deal to buy it fell through. In August 2022 it was reported that a deal to purchase the six-storey block, which also has a basement, for more than £4m was “imminent”.

But there was no further news of a purchase and in June this year the pile went back on the market for “in the region” of £3m. British Land, the enormous property company, acquired the House of Fraser building when it paid £67m for the huge block of city centre shops which extends from Old Town Street and down to Armada Way and included it and the now-closed Debenhams department stores.

The House of Fraser building is let to SDI (Propco 46) Ltd, trading as House of Fraser, by way of a licence at a peppercorn rent. The lease was for 125 years from January 1992, meaning it still has 93 years unexpired. The freeholder is Plymouth City Council.

In 2021 British Land shoved the Debenhams building on the market, with an asking price of at least £3.5m, after the chain shut its entire portfolio of more than 90 UK stores. Essex-based developer BuildVantage Ltd has since drawn up plans to place a two-storey extension on top and demolish and rebuild part of the rear of the building to provide light for flats created in the former sales area of the upper floors. Work has yet to start.

In March this year the huge city centre building that houses Tesco Express and TK Maxx had nearly £2m slashed from its asking price after failing to sell. The building, which fronts onto New George Street, Royal Parade and Bedford Way, went on the market in June 2022 for £6.31m but was re-advertised at a knock-down price of £4.5m.

The Plymouth House of Fraser store was scheduled for closure in 2018 but saved when billionaire Sports Direct mogul Mike Ashley bought the chain out of administration and renamed it Frasers Group. The company is best known for trading under the Sports Direct brand and also owns Jack Wills, GAME, Flannels, USC, Lillywhites and Evans Cycles.

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