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Joe & The Juice agrees letting at St Sampson's Square, York

Architect's visual of the proposed Joe & The Juice store on the corner of Feasegate and St Sampson's Square, York: a painted brick building with a pink fascia and lettering to both frontages, full height glazing with window bar seating, and café tables and chairs on the pavement.

Helmsley Group has agreed a letting of 1 Feasegate and 1-2 St Sampson's Square, York, to Joe & The Juice. The Grade II listed corner will be the brand's first store in York.

The letting is subject to a scheme of landlord's works which will commence shortly to revitalise this prominent building.

The building

The property occupies the corner of Feasegate and St Sampson's Square, with frontages to both, in the centre of York's retail and leisure core. Parliament Street and Davygate are immediately adjacent and Coney Street is a short walk away.

The property was purchased by Helmsley Group as a syndicate in 2022. The outgoing tenant, Size?, vacated earlier in September 2026 so there has been a minimal void period.

The letting

Joe & The Juice will take the whole building on a new ten-year lease, with a tenant break at the seventh anniversary. The permitted use is a juice-led café.

The tenant will be trading off both the ground and first floors, bringing more of the building back into use than the previous occupier.

Buying for reversion

Helmsley Group's approach to city centre retail is to buy well located buildings where it believes the passing rent sits below what the space would achieve on a new letting, and then to capture that reversion through active management. The rent agreed with Joe & The Juice is materially ahead of the rent paid under the previous lease.

The firm applied the same reasoning when it acquired 70 Low Petergate this month.

Edward Harrowsmith, investment director at Helmsley Group, said: "We bought St Sampson's Square because we believed the building was let below its value. It is a listed corner on one of the busiest squares in the city, and occupiers want corners. Joe & The Juice choosing it for their first York store bears that out.

"It is the same approach we are taking on Low Petergate. Buy the right buildings on the right streets, manage them properly and the rental increase follows."

Helmsley Group's syndicated property investments are Unregulated Collective Investment Schemes and are suitable only for professional clients, certified high net worth individuals and certified sophisticated investors. Helmsley Securities Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority under firm reference number 665743. This article is published for information only. It is not an invitation or inducement to invest, and it is not advice. Property values and rental income can fall as well as rise.

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