38 Church Place is an attached three-bay, three-storey building located on the south side of Church Place. It was originally built as a two storey building in the early 1800s, before it was raised into a three storey building in c.1870/71 to serve as ‘The Commercial Hotel’ under Charles O’Brien’s proprietorship. In the late 1960s/1970s a rear extension was added. The building operated as ‘The Commercial Hotel’ under various owners including Andrew Donnelly and James & Patrick McGreavy. Later the building served as a public house under the guises of The Wilton Cross, The Ceili House Bar, The Premier and The Manhatten among the most recent iterations.

Unfortunately this building suffered extensive fire damage in April 2014 resulting in the destruction of the roof and collapse of two upper floors. The building has laid derelict since then.

Given it’s prominent position on the main street and dereliction, 38 Church Place was designated a high priority project in the Lurgan Townscape Heritage Scheme. Happily the current owner, MMG Buildings Ltd., have come forward to restore this building to the streetscape  with plans to create a ground floor retail unit, stores and apartment on the upper floor.

Under the first phase of works supported by the Lurgan Townscape Heritage Scheme, the building will be completed to shell and core stage with the walls, roof, floors, windows, and doors all restored.  The c.1960s/70s non-historic extension to the rear, which is in extremely poor condition and detracts from the surviving historic fabric, will be removed and replaced with a smaller three storey extension, housing a lift shaft and stairwell, freeing up floor space within the surviving historic front block.

Once this phase is completed the applicant will then fit out the ground floor as a retail unit and apartment on the upper floor under their own resources.

Work commenced on site in January. The film below provides an overview of the plans for the site: