John Lewis, Poole

Client: Land Securities
Architect: Woods Hardwick
Project Manager: Munro White Hilton
Structural Engineer: BWB

A pioneering project for John Lewis, a revolutionary new format store has been born in Poole in Dorset.  The store is a third of the size of a normal John Lewis department store; specialising in home and electrical products with a retail area of approximately 45,000sq ft.  This Design & Build contract was completed a week early in twenty three weeks. We also gave the tenant early access after fourteen
weeks to start the fit out and merchandising.

The development is on the site of an old Courts unit and had been empty for a number of years. We stripped the building back to the main steel frame which included removing an existing mezzanine floor, all of the old fixture and fittings, the wall cladding and an asbestos roof.  Once the unit was back to the main frame we carried out extensive alteration to the steel work before the new wall and roof cladding could be installed along with feature glazing to two elevations.

Externally we removed and treated a vast amount of Japanese knotweed before we could start reshaping the external works, all new services were brought into the development and new hard standings were installed to three elevations including a concrete service yard and tarmac car parks.  Soft landscaping and a disabled access ramp were installed to the new shop front.