One question everyone has been asking us in recent months is “are Wetherspoons coming to Marlow?” There has been a persistent rumour that the pub chain had purchased the M&Co building on West Street, but we had not seen any concrete evidence. Until now, that is……
We can confirm that J D Wetherspoon PLC has indeed purchased 2-3 Market Square, which consists of M&Co on the ground floor and other office space on the first floor. They paid £3.5 million for the property.
It is important to note that when the property was originally put up for sale a couple of years ago , it was made clear there were sitting tenants, being
- M & Co – ground floor, 10 year lease running to March 2029
- Another firm on the first floor, 10 year lease to August 2023
So will this be turned into a Wetherspoons pub?
Wetherspoons are already in the local area- The Falcon in High Wycombe, the Bear in Maidenhead and the Catherine Wheel in Henley.
It would be very unusual for Wetherspoons to purchase a property purely for investment purposes. They have a huge portfolio of owned pubs, and their most recent accounts reveal they hold just 3 freehold properties with existing tenants (thus classified as investments) and “During the year, the company developed one of its investment properties into a pub.” I.e. they buy up non-pub locations, which when possible they then convert. They would clearly need to come to an arrangement with the current tenants to do anything soon though…
What else might happen to the site?
Long term followers might recall that when Steamer Trading closed down the site was purchased by Marston’s brewery and pub chain, and in 2017 detailed plans were approved to convert it to a “Lost & Found” bar – read details on that here.
Then…. the site was sold on for £4.5m , with Marstons telling MyMarlow “We were offered an attractive price for the site and we took the decision to focus our capital projects on a number of other locations, in what has been a very busy year.”. The site sat empty for some while of course, and is now being developed into an Everyman Cinema.
The point is… nothing is certain! However, the fact is the site has been purchased and we will keep you updated.
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