© Provided by The TelegraphM&S store
Marks & Spencer has become the latest retailer to reveal plans to turn some retail space into offices.
The retailer is seeking to convert the upper levels of its Marble Arch store on Oxford Street as part of a wider redevelopment of the site and then lease it to City tenants.
Marble Arch, which opened in 1930, is M&S's biggest store with 160,000 sq ft of trading space.
It will continue to sell food and clothes. Rivals including John Lewis and Fenwick have taken similar steps to change their West End stores.
M&S's proposed overhaul comes after it vowed to be "never the same again" and modernise the business amid the accelerated shift to online shopping triggered by the pandemic.
Sacha Berendji, retail, property and operations director, said the consultation was "the latest example of how we are shifting gears in creating a store estate fit for the future".
M&S will submit its planning application later this year.
In October John Lewis won permission to turn almost half of its flagship Oxford Street store into office space as it tries to restore the business to profitability.
The loss-making department store chain, which has had a presence in the capital since 1864, was given the nod by Westminster City Council after submitting plans for the site the previous month.
John Lewis could now turn floors three to eight of its Oxford Street branch, or 45pc of total floorspace, into dual use space.
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