The upper floors of the 184-year-old department store will be converted into a luxury hotel featuring a rooftop bar while the lower part of the famous building will be turned into a modern shopping destination.

Work is underway on stripping parts of the interior - although its most historic features will be retained – after the previous owners, Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group, left last year. The restoration is expected to take around four years.

The new owners said they felt a “moral obligation” to restore the building to its former glory and honour its history and tradition.

The proposed design for the building facing Princes Street and South St David Street (Photo: David Chipperfield Architects).

The ambitious plans put forward by AAA United A/S, the holdings company owned by Danish billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen who bought the store for £53 million in 2017, promise to retain the building’s distinctive Renaissance-style frontage while converting the interior for modern use.

Key aspects of the original Jenners store will be kept in place such as the central atrium and iconic Jenners sign, which the council ordered to be reinstated last year after it had been removed by Frasers Group.

However, the building will undergo significant alterations as it takes shape as a boutique 96-bedroom hotel on the upper floors, with a new seventh floor being added to the 1905 extension on the corner of South St David Street and Rose Street which will make space for a gym, plant enclosure and roof terrace bar.

In the lower section, Jenners will remain in traditional use as a shopping destination with retail spaces and food and drink outlets from the basement to the first floor.

Anders Holch Povlsen and his wife Anne Holch Povlsen

"The original Jenners building is the very DNA of our plans": Danish billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen gets go-ahead for massive restoration