Commercial property developer Wykeland Group has signed Pizza Express as the first tenant at the restored Burton House building in the heart of Hull.
PIZZA Express is one of Britain's most popular and successful restaurant brands and occupies a prime position in the city's Art Deco landmark, which has undergone a stunning makeover to return it to its original 1930s glory.
Fit-out of the restaurant is underway and Pizza Express hopes to open in the former Burton menswear building before Christmas.
At the entrance to Whitefriargate and overlooking Queen Victoria Square, Burton House is one of Hull's most striking and characterful buildings. The building, designed by famed chief architect Henry Wilson for company founder Montague Burton, has been vacant since 2020, when Burton owner Arcadia Group went bankrupt.
Wykeland purchased the building in 2021 and has since completed a major restoration of the exterior and key portions of the building's interior.
Burton House now offers 12,700 sq ft of prime city center space over five floors, all in one of Hull's most iconic buildings.
Jonathan Stubbs, development director at Hull-based Wykeland, said: “We are delighted to have secured Pizza Express as our first tenant at Burton House.
“We embarked on this ambitious restoration project with the vision of saving one of Hull's landmarks from decline and creating a thriving commercial space in the heart of the city center. The opening of Pizza Express will see the building returned to active use with a popular restaurant brand.”
“We have also seen strong interest in the upper floors of Burton House, highlighting the demand for high quality commercial space in a prime location.”
Pizza Express was founded in 1965 by entrepreneur and philanthropist Peter Boizot with the opening of a single restaurant in London's Soho district. The concept was an instant success and revolutionized the British restaurant scene by bringing casual dining to the high street.
Today, Pizza Express is one of the UK's most popular restaurant brands, with more than 470 pizzerias across the UK and expansion into 12 countries.
Pizza Express is now part of the lives of millions of people, but its ethos of a simple, quality menu with warm service has remained unchanged.
The restaurant group has leased 2,400 square feet of ground floor space and 1,600 square feet of basement space at Burton House.
The focus of the £2.4 million restoration of Burton House was replacing much of the granite cladding that adorns the building. Replacement granite was sourced from the same quarry in Norway to match the geographical origins of the original stone, which dates back to the mid-1930s.
The building's Art Deco windows were also replaced and new signage consistent with the original was also introduced.
On the upper floors, extensive restoration work has already renovated the original elevator and work has begun on creating attractive office spaces that can be moved into directly by users.
The offices, due for completion in December, will be loft-style spaces with an exposed brick finish, complete with new flooring, kitchen fittings and toilets.
The first, second and third floors each cover 2,500 square meters and are perfect for office and larger commercial use.
The restoration of Burton House is the latest significant town center regeneration project led by Wykeland. The company has also restored Hull's castle buildings as part of a £2 million project to bring another Hull landmark back into use.