Church confirms purchase of long vacant town centre eyesore – £2m refurb planned

The Diocese of St Asaph is the new owner of the former Burton’s store in Wrexham town centre.

The three storey building is the centrepiece of a bid to the Church in Wales’ £10m Evangelism Fund to create a new kind of Christian Community, aimed at young people and families.

The building dates from 1932 is on the corner of Town Hill and Hope Street and has been vacant since around 2008.

1 Hope Street, which is the address of the building, will undergo comprehensive refurbishment to create worship space as well as meeting rooms, offices, kitchen and hospitality areas and a base for social and community engagement. The details of the new venture, which will be run in partnership with existing churches, are dependent on being awarded a grant by the Church in Wales Representative Body. The Diocese of St Asaph has already passed the first stage and will hear later this year if its £2m bid has been fully accepted. The Diocese say a comprehensive business plan to ensure the viability of the venture has been developed and a contingency is in place should the bid for funding be unsuccessful.

The Bishop of St Asaph, the Rt Revd Gregory Cameron, who is leading this initiative said: “This is a bold, exciting and ambitious project to establish a new kind of church community, alongside our existing congregations.

“The purchase of 1 Hope Street is the first stage in achieving this and we are stepping out in faith knowing that we haven’t yet finalised all the funding.

“We wanted to secure a building in the centre of Wrexham, with easy access to all the town centre amenities and public transport networks.

“1 Hope Street will be transformed over the coming months and we intend to open the new venture in September 2020.”

1 Hope Street is an iconic gateway to the centre of Wrexham, visible from St Giles, a medieval church, considered one of the Seven Wonders of Wales. Discussions are underway with Wrexham County Borough Council to restore the building to its former glory and ensure its frontage remains in keeping with town centre plans.

It had been erroneously reported that St Giles had purchased the building, and that the deal had already been completed this year, although a religious based purchaser was long locally rumoured.

The 6,627 square foot three floor building was recently listed for sale for £135,000 and was moved to under offer earlier this year.

In February we highlighted a mention of the Burtons building in the 45 page appendix to a forthcoming council meeting, that noted: “The town centre experiences high vacancy and turnover and consistent under-occupation of upper floors. Many upper floors remain vacant resulting in a lack of maintenance and deterioration of the structural fabric, which degrades the overall appearance of the street-scene.

“The former Burtons at the junction of Hope Street and High Street is particularly detrimental in key views to and from the Church.

“The current condition with boarded up windows is visually poor and interim measures could be taken to improve this situation.”

In 2014 we went inside the building, and took the following set of images from the top floor where the former ballroom and bingo hall was sited.

We also spotted these messages from former Burtons staff left in 2008: