Selfridges owners plan luxury hotel in the flagship store on Oxford Street

The new owners of Selfridges are planning to open an upscale hotel and serviced apartment as part of a comprehensive modernization of the flagship store.

The redesign of Oxford Street, which the retailer has lived in for more than 100 years, includes an upgraded food hall.

Selfridges, which has UK branches in London, Manchester and Birmingham, was sold on Christmas Eve by the billionaire family Weston for £ 4 billion (US $ 5.4 billion) to the Thai Central Group and the Austrian real estate company Signa Holding in a joint venture . The companies each have a 50 percent stake in the company.

Dieter Berninghaus, Chief Executive Officer of Signa, said adding a luxury hotel and apartments to Selfridge’s flagship store would offer “significant value” for the brand.

“The purchase price only reflects the valuation of the main Selfridges building and its retail use,” said Beringhaus.

He said they had “planned to swap the Food Hall” because that is a core competence of the group, which also owns the Swiss luxury outlets KaDeWe and Globus and is proud to operate the best delicatessen store in the world.

The concept of a Selfridges hotel is not new, part of the building on Oxford Street is still empty – it houses a former hotel that was closed in 2008 and has only been used temporarily since then, e.g. for an indoor skate park.

The Selfridges sale falls at a difficult time for department stores and retailers in the UK, one that has been hit by coronavirus restrictions since the start of the pandemic and has had to close a number of major department stores, including Debenhams.

An August report found that the UK has lost 83 percent of its major department stores over the past five years, a strong reflection of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and changing shopping habits.

Almost two thirds of the closed shops are still vacant, according to a study by the commercial real estate information company CoStar Group, around 237 large shops still have to be taken over by a new one

There are now a number of empty units on London’s Oxford Street just a few meters from the Selfridges location, which is fighting the pandemic thanks to its proven formula for continuous innovation such as its “greenest Christmas sales ever” in 2020 and the ability to accommodate weddings successfully survived took place in the store.

Inside Selfridges’ first licensed wedding in the London store’s new bridal suite. All photos: Selfridges

Selfridges, founded in 1908 by Harry Gordon Selfridge, is also popular with Middle Eastern tourists who traditionally flock to his Oxford Street shop in the summer, as well as its other locations in Manchester, which opened in 1998, and Birmingham, which opened in 2003.

The store was bought by Canadian businessman Galen Weston for nearly £ 600 million in 2003 and has since expanded to other department store chains, including Arnotts and Brown Thomas in Ireland, Holt Renfrew in Canada and De Bijenkorf in the Netherlands.

The sale to Central and Signa does not include Holt Renfrew, who will remain with the Weston family.

Central Group is a family business that operates in multiple industries, from real estate and retail to hospitality and restaurants. According to a ranking compiled by Bloomberg News in November 2020, the Chirathivat family had the 20th largest net worth in Asia, valued at $ 12.9 billion.

Signa was founded by retail and real estate entrepreneur Rene Benko, who owns or has interests in some of the world’s most famous real estate, including the Chrysler Building in New York.

Updated: December 31, 2021, 5:45 p.m.