Parliament Street in Harrogate is to benefit from a multi-million pound development, transforming the street into a modern retail facility.
The building owner, Lateral Property, have had empty retail units on the street for some time. The plans for the street have involved much consideration and spend to reach this stage and have not been put together lightly.
One of the highlights will be a Jamie’s Italian restaurant which will be a destination restaurant, bringing people from outside into the town.
The development is estimated to develop 150-200 jobs, with many of them to likely be in the 16-21 age band.
A number of the existing retail tenants will be moving within the town. MultiYork will be relocating to the previous Habitat building on Station Parade.
This regeneration and development is to be welcomed, whilst the street can not be described as run down, it is certainly a busy and highly visible street to the many who come to Harrogate for conferences and exhibitions.
Gregory Projects have also just received approval for the redevelopment of the Tower Street bowling alley into a Travelodge. The plans took over 12-months to receive approval, meaning lost business income to the building owner and another year of a run down building for the town. Harrogate needs to be more business friendly and accommodating to business developers as a further encouragement to investment in the town.
Formal plans will be submitted to Harrogate Council in the coming months, with work to start shortly after then.
Sorry, I don’t like it. More suited to a London street than the centre of Harrogate. It’s completely out of keeping with the rest of Parliament St.
Great news, however – best of luck with “Harrogate needs to be more business friendly and accommodating to business developers as a further encouragement to investment in the town.” when you need to get it passed Harrogate Council Planning department. The government may well be trying to relax planning but no one seems to have told HGT planning about this or they are choosing to ignore.
I suspect there is little chance of the council becoming business minded, you just have to look at all the empty hall at Harrogate International Center to realise that. How about offering them at discount to attract some shows or a multi-year deal??
Good news. We need more high quality, modern retail space in Harrogate if we’re to compete with Leeds. Currently we’re on a collision course in retail. Harrogate always thinks it can rest on its laurels, and it simply can’t.
Where there are dated buildings, like this, lets see redevelopment of this scale. If I had any quarm, I’d say a fourth storey would be welcome; perhaps glass.
HBC/NYCC are hopeless, but with some private money I’m hoping Harrogate Interchange can get underway, which will provide significant new grade A retail and leisure space on the current station car park. I also wonder whether John Lewis would be interested in opening one of their small-format stores in Beales, as that went into administration.
Do we really need a street full of restaurants? Parliament Street was always known for its high end, independent retail units which is what made Harrogate special. After all, the current empty units are as a result of High Street chains going under and landlords demanding rents that independents cannot afford to pay. Are we going to rename Parliament Street Faliraki Street?
Does Harrogate really need any more restaurants/cafe units as at the moment that’s more or less ALL that people build apart from Pawn Shops ?. Also a lot of the restaurants don’t normally last long especially the more recent ones (including ones with celbs backing them).
Sorry but why create more restaurants when Harrogate is clearly a one or at most two night a week town. Driving regularly through Harrogate the restaurants look pretty much empty apart from Saturday night and a less busy Friday night, a few people mill about the bars on a Thursday night. Can’t really see another restaurant would help the situation, no doubt Jamie Olivers will be a two or three year wonder. The block of flats which is Harrogate House could definitely do with a make-over as I believe this block is meant to house a middle class, young professional person, however when I had a look at two flats within the block they appeared very run down and tired, I actually thought that with a make-over they would make good social ‘affordable’ housing which is what Harrogate is in desperate need of to take the pressure off the housing list.