Landmark building in Rochdale renamed No. 2 The Esplanade

No 2 The Esplanade

One of the Rochdale’s most iconic buildings, which was built as the town’s main Post Office almost 90 years ago, has been renamed No 2 The Esplanade following the completion of an extensive refurbishment earlier this year.

The property was constructed in 1927 in the distinctive Restrained Baroque style from Portland Stone under a Westmorland slate roof, a type of architecture normally associated with buildings in mainland Europe rather than Lancashire.

Due to its unusual design, unique for the town, the property’s historic importance was recognised in 1985 when the property was listed.

For the past 10 years the property has been home to Rochdale Boroughwide Housing, however with the local housing association vacating earlier in 2014, building owners Crystal Property have completely renovated the outside of the building and refurbished the inside of the property - with a view to attracting a leisure use to the ground floor and office tenants to the newly formed business centre suites at first and second floor levels.

Crystal Property Chairman Stephen Ashworth comments: “This is an extremely exciting time for Rochdale town centre.

"Several improvement schemes are being carried out at the moment near our building, and the proposed works to expose the River Roch and the historic bridges along The Esplanade will make a real difference to the look of the street - we are keen to identify our property with this area of town, hence the new name.

"We think it’s an elegant sounding address, which suits the style of the property perfectly.

“Our building is a quality offering and we have only been marketing the property for a couple of months but already we have some serious interest in the whole of the ground floor space from a national operator, and have a firm of accountants and strong interest from another company seriously looking at circa 4,000 sq ft on the first floor.

"This is a great reflection of the optimism shown towards the town at the moment”.