SHROUDED behind white sheets and beyond the public’s gaze the guts of Southampton’s first department store are slowly being pulled apart.

Demolition teams are bringing to an end more than 100 years of retail history by ripping down the city’s former Tyrrell and Green store. A tangled mesh of concrete rubble and steel wiring is all that remains of the loading bays at the rear of the building, which has stood empty for nine years.

The old menswear, electrical and furniture departments will soon be prized down in the grip of a Caterpillar’s pinchers.

City councillors have long held ambitions to transform the building in Above Bar into a bright new arts complex as the centrepiece of a much heralded cultural quarter.

And after years of delay – the previous scheme by City Lofts, which was owned by doomed investment bank Lehman Brothers, collapsed last summer – Tories decided to press ahead with demolition to show their commitment to the vision.

They put up £1.2m of public cash to flatten the building and create a open space with views from the Guildhall into East Park ready for future developers to move in.

Specialist contractor Cuddy has been stripping out the former John Lewis-owned store, between the present Fat Cat pub and Savoy Taylors Guild, for the past three months to prepare for the demolition work.

They hope to have cleared the site by early in the new year. But a decision on a crucial Arts Council grant could still leave the Conservatives’ £14m arts complex in tatters.

Economic development boss Councillor Royston Smith admitted: “They hold all the cards. It’s not going ahead unless we get the Arts Council grant.”

But he said he was optimistic a national council meeting in March would confirm the £5.7m funding towards the complex to allow developer Grosvenor to sign up for the redevelopment of the site, beginning in 2011.