After the 1996 Manchester bombing by the IRA, trading space in Lewis's was rented to Marks &amp; Spencer and other smaller retailers displaced following heavy damage to the Corn Exchange. Marks &amp; Spencer and the small retailers moved into new accommodation in 1999; Lewis's suffered from a smaller footfall thereafter, and attempted to fight back by reinventing itself as partially a 'discount retailer'. In a final attempt to arrest the decline, the remainder-clothing retailer TK Maxx was invited to trade from the basement floor. In 2002, the Manchester branch ceased trading; the premises are now occupied by a branch of Primark.