Philip Green is believed to be in talks to sublet or assign all or part of Capital & Counties’ Lewis’s department store in Manchester.
The retailer entreprenuer, who bought Sears last year, runs Owen & Owen which is the current tenant.
Allders, Beatties and T J Hughes are rumoured to have been in negotiations with Green to take his lease on the 37,160 sq m (400,000 sq ft) store.
But Bill Black, director at Capital & Counties, said: “Under the Philip’s lease terms, he’s not in a position to be able to sublet all of the store.”
M&S took 5,574 sq m (60,000 sq ft) of temporary space in the store after the IRA bomb in Manchester in 1996, but moved out when its new store on the Shambles opened. Green is believed to be talking to concessions about taking the space.
Black added: “Things are in gestation. There’s a loss of income on the former M&S space and he’s working on that, but he hasn’t come to a conclusion. I know he’s got his own people thinking how to move the surplus space forward. We can either take space back or Philip can sublet it – it’s all in the melting pot.”
Philip Green was unavailable for comment.
EGi News 10/03/2000
