Marks and Spencer

“The new building…at the time, would be the largest Marks & Spencer in the world.”

Monday 25 November 2024 marked the 25th anniversary of the opening of the Marks and Spencer store located on Cross Street/ Corporation Street, along with opening of New Cathedral Street and completion of the re-worked western part of the Arndale Centre.

Providing Marks & Spencer with a new store was the centrepiece of the EDAW (now AECOM) masterplan which won the International Urban Design Competition following the city centre bomb on 15 June 1996.

The replacement building, designed by BDP (Building Design Partnership Ltd), would replace the original store as well as land immediately adjacent. The new building would bring with it 250,000 sqft of space – treble the size of the store devastated by the blast and, at the time, would be the largest Marks & Spencer in the world.

The top photo is from 1998 and shows the work that was underway within the epicentre of the bomb damaged area with the new Marks & Spencer store under construction and the Arndale Centre facade stripped back.

The bottom photo is from November 2024 and shows the completed store (Selfridges went on to take 120,000 sqft of space in the building in September 2002, facing onto Exchange Square).

Alongside this it shows how the previously tiled facade of the Arndale Centre was reclad and extended by around seven feet as part of the planned improvements to the retail and pedestrian experience.

The importance of the new Marks & Spencer store in the rebuilding was captured by Sir Howard Bernstein in an interview with The Independent on 25 November 1999:

‘It was crucial that our predominant role as the retail and business centre of the region might not be threatened. From the start it was decided not merely to repair...but turn the adversity into an opportunity to replan.’