ALL WHITE TAXIS
SOUTHPORT & FORMBY
14 July 2021
Vol 28 l Issue 28
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l Beales in surprise re-opening l Grand building to be turned into top wedding venue with suites, brewery and entertainment centre
BIG BOOST FOR LORD STREET! How the Grand building on Lord Street looks now
SOUTHPORT’S premier street received a massive Lord Street Hotel, Punch Tarmey’s Irish Pub, Lord Street double boost this week with the news that Beales is Sports Bar, and the group has just been named as the reopening its Lord Street department store and the operator of the new feature bar at the redeveloped derelict Grand building is to be turned into a top Southport Market which is due to open next week. wedding venue and entertainment centre - complete Beales, whose premises are adjacent to Wayfarers with ‘one of Europe’s largest sky bars’. Arcade, is set to reopen after closing its doors in March Beales made the surprise announcement that it is to 2020 when administrators failed to find a buyer for the reopen after the brand was acquired by a newly-created struggling chain. News of its reopening will also be a company taking on the store’s welcome shot in the arm for traders former chief executive to oversee in the arcade. Large signs have the new venture. The Grand has Report by Danielle Thompson appeared in the windows (pictured been snapped up by the everabove) of the building which previexpanding Mikhail Hotel and Leisously housed Broadbents and ure Group, adding to the firm’s increasing presence in Boothroyds. The signs simply state: ‘Beales Department Southport. Stores - your new store is coming soon.’ The group has ambitious plans to reinvigorate the A newly-created company, New Start 2020, bought the once-prestigious site following years of the building fall- Beales brand last year and also took on the previous ing into disrepair. Now its fortunes are set to change chief executive of the business, Tony Brown. He revealed with plans to transform it into a wedding venue with the group planned to create a ‘small chain’ of departbridal suites, a brewery, and an entertainment centre, ment stores as a new business model, which would be creating, they say, more than 100 jobs. ‘much more sustainable than 200.’ It appears Southport The Grand Cinema closed on July 2, 1966 and was will now benefit from that vision. converted into an independent bingo hall. It last operNewly-revived Beales stores are already operating in ated as the Stanley Grand Casino, and from 2007 Poole and Peterborough, with Southport set to be the became the Mint Casino, but closed in May 2016 and third store in the chain. the building was boarded up in early 2017. No date has been given for the store’s opening but The building was formerly a car showroom. The workmen could be seen in the building this week sugMikhail Hotel and Leisure Group already own and run gesting Beales doors could be open again very soon. several venues in the town including The Bold Hotel, Continued inside
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