Risk-Averse Market Means This Retrofit Success Could Be A One-Off

For local residents and the millions of people who travel through one of London's busiest transport hubs each year, former department store Arding & Hobbs is a local landmark.

Once synonymous with shopping in south London, the Grade II-listed building overlooking Clapham Junction station has emerged as a case study in adaptive reuse, just recognised through a 2026 RIBA National Award, with an eclectic mix of food and beverage, retail, offices, a club and a gym.

But its developer worries it could be the first and last such imaginative scheme.

Fresh from receiving recognition and with the final major tenant signed, Bisnow toured the revamped building with W.RE CEO Sascha Lewin, who explained why he believes Arding & Hobbs reflects a viable future for mixed-use repurposing — but fears that it couldn’t be built again.

For developer W.RE, the Arding & Hobbs project clearly represents much more than a heritage restoration.

The repositioning of a 158K SF landmark into a mixed-use destination combining offices, hospitality, leisure and retail ticks all the boxes. But Lewin said that in the eight years since W.RE first acquired what was still a department store at the time of purchase, the appetite for risk and for unpredictable ventures has changed so fundamentally that it would be almost impossible to do it again.

W.RE acquired the property from British Land in late 2018 for around £48M while it was still occupied by Debenhams, which quickly thereafter went into administration.

Rather than pursue another retail occupier, the company embarked on a comprehensive repositioning that has taken it into all sorts of unforeseen places.

“We felt that it was very good value, because British Land was looking to reposition its retail portfolio and the store didn’t really fit,” Lewin said.

The company knew that it wanted to move Debenhams out and thought it would have a couple of years to do that — but the whole business folded in a matter of months, which accelerated its plans.

“We felt there was an opportunity to create an office hub and that the ground floor would probably remain as a retail or F&B offer, and it would have been very easy to slot in a supermarket or major F&B chain,” Lewin said. “But we didn’t think that would bring value to the office tenants.” 

The pandemic changed everything, and with uncertainty about what the return to work would look like, W.RE and architect Stiff + Trevillion had to reimagine what would fly financially and socially.

“The real positive about the location was Clapham Junction station over the road,” Lewin said.

He had looked at the impact of Victoria Station and the big corporate offices that had been developed. But Victoria isn't an especially charming place, he said, and while W.RE didn’t foresee targeting corporate occupiers, "We felt we could do something more unique and that would attract aspirational tenants moving from more outer locations such as Croydon,” Lewin said of an area that remains largely devoid of bigger office spaces.

Inevitably, that also meant digging deep. The redevelopment ultimately carried a construction value of about £43M, and in August 2021, W.RE secured approximately £55M of development finance from BentallGreenOak in what was rapidly evolving into an unusual retail-to-mixed-use conversion.

Following practical completion and leasing, which is now all but complete, in late 2024, the project attracted a £58M refinancing facility from Fiera Real Estate Debt Strategies.

The result is that roughly 30% of the building now accommodates retail, F&B and leisure uses, while the upper floors have been converted into approximately 74K SF of office accommodation split between longer-lease spaces and flexible working.

Arding & Hobbs' storied legacy, dating back to 1910, meant that rather than chasing conventional office occupiers alone, W.RE has sought businesses that reinforce the building's destination appeal.

Luxury fitness operator Third Space occupies three floors, Italian food retailer Prezzemolo & Vitale has established a flagship delicatessen, Botanica Hall has introduced a ground-floor restaurant and distillery concept, flexible workspace specialist X+why operates nearly 27,500 SF of coworking and serviced offices, and there is the building's Arding Rooms club and rooftop terrace.

Most recently, low-cost fitness operator The Gym Group selected the scheme for its headquarters, taking 16K SF.

But one of the biggest challenges facing former department stores is their deep floor plates and limited natural light.

Architect Stiff + Trevillion tackled those issues by inserting a central atrium, introducing significantly more daylight while improving circulation through the building. The practice retained major heritage features, including stained-glass roofs, exposed brickwork, original stone walls and the clock tower, while adding a contemporary rooftop extension constructed using engineered timber. A safe that contained £1M of defunct Debenhams vouchers was also retained for one of the offices.

“The vertical movement gave us an opportunity to create space around the escalators and bring light into the building,” Stiff + Trevillion Director Lance Routh said.

“It’s also quite a communal way of travelling up and down, which makes it more of a cohesive way of being within the whole building.”

The architect reused elements such as the doors and referenced its original use as a draper’s through the curtains in reception. 

The scheme also deliberately differentiates new and old. The rooftop crown, clad in brass panels and incorporating cross-laminated timber construction, sits above the historical structure while providing terraces overlooking London. According to the RIBA jury, the contemporary additions “neither imitate nor compete” with the historic building.

By retaining much of the existing structure, the redevelopment significantly reduced embodied carbon compared with demolition and rebuild. The completed scheme achieved BREEAM Excellent certification and WiredScore Platinum accreditation.

“We have tried to make positives out of the challenges,” Lewin said.

On the third floor, the developer had low ceiling heights and was concerned about the space for a large office floor plate. So it worked with X+why to develop a flex and coworking space with modular desks. That makes a virtue of the space, then the offices around the perimeter are let on more traditional leases. 

On the other side, it had the opposite problem: high ceilings and stained glass — beautiful spaces, but perhaps not valuable to an office occupier. So it decided to create a members club.

It was a tough decision, and it meant the investor having to take another leap of faith, Lewin said, but the building has become a community hub and a facility for the building’s occupiers.

“On the terrace level, we now have an agreed occupier [that will effectively complete leasing], and that means we’ll have to adapt the way some of the terrace is used,” Lewin said. “But that’s why we decided to work with X+why, because we know that a building like this requires flexibility and adaptability, and we wanted to stay in control.”