THE closure and sale of one of Liverpool’s landmark buildings, the 30 James Street – Home of the Titanic Hotel and former headquarters of the world famous White Star Line, is deeply disappointing news.

This is the second time the hotel has gone into administration in two years after conversion from offices, when it was previously called Albion House. It first failed under the initial owner Signature Living and then Hamburg-based RIMC Hotels and Resorts. Its freehold is now for sale by Savills estate agents.

For decades the building was like a sleeping giant in the pantheon of what is now global interest in anything to do with Liverpool’s ill-fated RMS Titanic. This was hugely boosted by director James Cameron’s Hollywood blockbuster 1997 film Titanic. The film brought the tragic story to a new generation across the world with amazing special effects coupled with a Bollywood-style love story.

The building is at the heart of the Titanic story as the names of survivors from the disaster were read out by White Star staff from the balcony over the main entrance. This is seen in happier times at the hotel’s initial opening with my son Alex and I,  (below left). The superb White Star flag was donated by Paul Louden-Brown, Titanic Historical Society chair.

Indeed, the building’s fortunes to an extent mirror that of its illustrious original White Star Line owner, which also had magnificent ups and ignominious downs, apart from Titanic herself.

Opened in 1898 on what was then The Strand dockside overlooking the River Mersey, the building was designed by the leading architect Richard Norman Shaw in an avant garde style. Its striped red brick and white Portland stone inevitably led to the nickname ‘the streaky bacon building’.

When the Pier Head and Strand docks were filled in to build the ‘Three Graces’ the White Star HQ became firmly landlocked. Worse still, White Star’s deadly rival Cunard Line in 1914 plonked its palatial head practically in front of it.

Worse followed with the UK government forcing White Star into an unhappy merger with Cunard in 1934, leaving the former as very much the junior partner, its fleet soon decimated, and this once grand HQ sold to other shipping lines.

Later as Albion House, the building became home to other famous Liverpool lines like Pacific Steam Navigation (which installed the lobby’s big South America mosaic, left) and Blue Star Line.

In spite of its Heritage England Grade II* listing, the building’s latter day London owner let it slide into decades of semi-dereliction, until Liverpool developer and hotel entrepreneur Lawrence Kenwright’s Signature Living group bought it for £1.6m, apparently spending £5.5m for conversion into a 309 guest hotel opening in 2014.

Now renamed 30 James Street – Home of the Titanic, it became ‘wedding party central’ boasting the city’s first rooftop champagne bar. An underground spa was added, with separate dormitory accommodation, The Morgan Vault, aimed at hen and stag party guests.

After it fell into administration under Signature Living, the hotel was sold to RIMC Hotels and Resorts in May 2023, which promised a multi-million pound upgrade in that year necessitating a seven month closure. Now many staff have been laid off and others left with their wages unpaid. The iron entrance gates are firmly locked with seemingly little hope of reopening soon.

This is the dismal latest chapter in a pioneering building which survived the Liverpool Blitz, when all around was reduced to rubble and its upper storeys were burnt out.

Commissioned by White Star Line founder Thomas Henry Ismay, one of Liverpool’s greatest merchant princes, the building was one of Europe’s first skyscrapers. The internal steel frame made it one of the first open plan offices.

Inside Titanic was conceived by White Star Line’s directors and its chairman J Bruce Ismay, son of Thomas Henry Ismay. Attached outside are the city’s only New York style fire escape ladders, underlining Liverpool’s strong links with North America.

With Liverpool now so dependant on the visitor economy, surely 30 James Street deserves to be centre stage for tourists, not just another empty building? Let’s hope a buyer can be found soon.

You can read my original Liverpool Echo story here, with the pictures by the superb Colin Lane, Echo Chief Photographer.

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/hall-former-white-star-line-6497211