State House Liverpool heads to auction with £2.5m guide

District & Urban Investments is putting Liverpool’s State House up for auction on 11 November with a £2.5m guide price. The city-centre freehold covers an 84,300 sq ft mixed-use building on Dale Street.

The property produces £401,100 in annual rental income, with the guide price carrying an advertised gross initial yield of 16.05%, as reported by Place North West.

What happened

Allsop and Moffatt Scott have been appointed joint auctioneers for the online-only sale. They are marketing the building on behalf of District & Urban Investments, which holds the freehold.

At 22 Dale Street, State House combines a 92-room hotel with six commercial units, six floors of offices and a basement car park providing 30 spaces. The sale therefore brings several types of commercial accommodation into a single freehold offering.

Vacant accommodation totals 37,600 sq ft, equivalent to about 45% of the building’s stated floor area. Finding occupiers for that space is one of the opportunities identified by the selling agent.

The background

The freehold last changed hands in 2017, when State House was priced at £5m. The current guide is half that figure, although it is an auction guide rather than an agreed sale price.

Scion Hotels is the building’s majority tenant through The Z Hotel Liverpool. The hotel sits alongside a wider occupier base that includes North John Cocktail Company, The Growth Company, Integrity Property Consultants, Shayan Tech and William Hill.

Elsewhere in Liverpool’s commercial property market, Sciontec is targeting a May 2027 start for Hemisphere One. That separate project comprises 150,000 sq ft of laboratory and office space, with Morgan Sindall lined up as preferred contractor for completion in early 2029.

What people are saying

Moffatt Scott co-founder Andrew Scott described the building’s established location as an attraction and said comparable opportunities were scarce. His assessment of its potential centred on changes to the existing leases, occupation of the empty accommodation and possible conversion.

Lease regears would involve renegotiating existing tenancy arrangements, making the current occupiers part of the asset-management proposition as well as a source of rental income. Scott did not identify any agreed lease changes or prospective new tenants.

Conversion was presented as a possible route for a purchaser, subject to the necessary consents. No specific conversion scheme was set out, so that option remains distinct from the building’s existing hotel, commercial and office uses.

What happens next

The freehold is scheduled to be offered through the online auction on 11 November. The price achieved, if a sale proceeds, will determine how the transaction compares with both the £2.5m guide and the figure recorded at the previous transfer.

Any subsequent letting programme, lease renegotiation or conversion would depend on the buyer’s plans. The marketing sets out those options but does not establish a timetable for bringing the vacant space back into use.