Austins (department store)

For the department store in Devon, see Austins, Newton Abbot.

Austins was a department store in the Diamond area of Derry in Northern Ireland. The store was established in 1830 and, until 2016, remained standing as the world's oldest independent department store.^[1] The building measures 25,000 square feet (2,300 m²) and is five stories high, with an Edwardian-style baroque exterior built in 1906 by MA Robinson after the original building was destroyed by fire. The Austins Department store building in the Diamond was owned by the City Hotel Group, but the actual retail operation was leased to Hassonzender, which went into liquidation.

Austins department store, 2007

The department store closed its doors to staff and the public without warning on 8 March 2016.

^[2][3] The liquidators state that the unforeseen costs of dealing with asbestos, and the disruption to trading this would have entailed, proved to be a stumbling block to attracting investment and this led to the sudden closure. Derry City Council officials raised the issue of dealing with the asbestos following the introduction of new regulations, in the Spring of 2015.

In March 2025, 9 years after it closed to the public and staff, the building was bought by the Inner City Trust (ICT) for £1.2 million, which was funded by the Northern Ireland government in Stormont. The building was announced to go under "immediate restoration work" in March 2025. On 2 July 2025, it was announced by the Derry Journal that representatives of the Inner City Trust (ICT) were "hopeful" that they would have "good news" about the future development of Austins later in 2025.

There is no official re-opening date, or no confirmation that Austins will reopen as a department store again.

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