Cabot Circus Centre owners reveal plans to transform Quakers Friars

THE owners of Cabot Circus want to radically transform the separate street of shops it owns in the city centre, and create an upstairs level which could be a large health centre.

- Tristan CORK

Hammerson, the firm that owns Cabot Circus, has submitted two planning applications to Bristol City Council that cover the separate Quakers Friars area of the shopping centre, which presently has designer fashion shops and the Apple store along Philadelphia Street.

As well as a series of on-street improvements to the public spaces around the historic Quakers Friars, which will make it more of a destination for people to socialise with bars, cafes and restaurants, the biggest change will be in the buildings that contain the shops on the south side of Philadelphia Street.

All the upstairs first floors will be separated from their downstairs stores and be merged into one large space. While the ‘Masterplan’ produced by the architects does not specify exactly what will be there, one plan mentions ‘indicative healthcare use.