The group which purchased the Austin’s department store said that it has no plans to build a hotel at the site.

The City Hotel Group has now bought the building (pictured) after the Austins department store went into administrative receivership.

The group has confirmed that the move will result in 55 jobs being safeguarded and the Austins brand continuing to trade as normal.

Speaking on local radio this morning, Brendan Duddy of The City Hotel Group said that there were no plans to open a hotel on the site and that the store would continue as ‘retail group’, adding that there was ‘no intention to change that’.

He added that the group were intending to review how the building looked, and that it was expected that a number of new retailers would be in the store by early 2015.

The shop was bought by the Hassan family in 1976 and has been in their hands for 38 years.

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