A shuttered York shop is destined to enjoy a bold new lease of life as part of the regenerated Coney Street.
The four-storey building that used to be home to Beaverbrooks jewellers on Spurriergate was bought by new owners just hours before planners voted through the ‘transformational’ Coney Street Riverside scheme last Thursday.
The fact that the project was green-lighted was brilliant news for the buyers – Vincent Roberts and Camelia Andrei. Because it will turn their terrace building into a corner property.
Right now, the Beaverbrooks building is joined to Boots.
But Boots is being demolished under the Coney Street Riverside scheme, to create a walkway down to the Ouse.
And once Boots goes, the former Beaverbrooks premises will occupy the corner of a very busy route from the shopping street to the river.
Vincent and Camelia have teamed up before – to create the magical Hocus Pocus Tiny Hotel on Patrick Pool.
Last week, the hotel was named the Best Place to Stay in the YorkMix Choice Awards 2024.
Vincent told YorkMix they had been thinking about buying the Spurriergate building for a year, after learning about the Coney Street Riverside scheme by York developers the Helmsley Group.
He said: “It creates the gateway through to the river that’s called Waterloo Place, which opens it all out with a seating area, a grassed area – and then they’ve got the redevelopment of Coney Street from that point all the way back up to the clock face.
“It’s exactly what York needs.
“But if you imagine, once that Boots comes down,and they build part of the other side up, that building is going to be on a corner plot.”
He said the transformation of the old Beaverbrooks building might take several years to come to fruition, as they have to wait for all the remodelling of Coney Street to take place.
And he emphasised they were keen to work with the Helmsley Group as part of Coney Street’s regeneration.
So what’s their new property going to be? That’s not been fully decided yet.
“We’re not totally sure what we’re going to do.
“What would be really nice is a bar on the ground floor, with glazed screens that open out onto the open area.
“And then the upper floors would be accommodation. So it could be put a themed pub with rooms, or it could be a themed hotel, like Hocus Pocus.
“It was more a case of just securing the building first and then deciding what was going to be thereafter.”
Camelia says she is a “hotelier in my blood” so she envisages another unique hotel, potentially with a restaurant, café, or café-bar on the ground floor.
Hocus Pocus is special because the duo created bespoke rooms on a magical theme, from a castle to a potions room.
And Camelia says she already has two great ideas for the new building, which she can’t disclose yet.
“It will be magic. You will never have seen such a thing,” she told YorkMix. “This will be something that will leave everybody gobsmacked.
“It will be an attraction, a curiosity, and something very unique and original. But I can’t tell you more than this I’m afraid.”
Vincent and Camelia won’t say what they paid for the building. It was on sale for £500,000, later reduced to £450,000. It is Grade II listed and dates from the 1840s.