Ahh great. I'm actually glad that Gilly is leaving - that shop is ridiculous. I find the staff there really weird - "the Cheeky cousin of Abercrombie & Fitch." Sad.

Agreed. Anything that described itself as 'an all-American brand with a Sydney sensibility' or 'the cheeky cousin' was doomed to fail. Labels like that make no sense outside of a PR agency boardroom.

This is pretty embarrassing for Capitol Shopping Centre, as its management company Plus Shops is actually Tiger's UK acquisition adviser.

Any news, new openings or announcements? Been away from Cardiff since August so wondering whether anything has happened in the centre of recent?

Could Uniqlo open in Cardiff? (they are opening in Manchester)

Are Forever 21 going to make the move?

Will A&F take over Gilly Hicks in their first European Mall location? (that would be interesting)

No concrete answers but guesses:

- Could uniqlo? Maybe.. but not for a while. If its going to Manchester, it will probably open a second store in the Trafford Centre, and then try cities like Leeds, Liverpool, Glasgow and maybe stores in places like Meadowhall and Metrocentre before Cardiff.

- Forever 21 have really cooled on the UK, downsizing in Birmingham, and holding back on stores even in London.

- Abercrombie. No way. They are already struggling and have lost a lot of their cachet recently. Outside North America they probably think the best way to succeed is to stay exclusive. Opening in perhaps the 11th or 12th best shopping centre in the UK isn't the way to do that.

I'd love to see sales figures for St Davids stores - from that we could probably guess the kind of stores that would want to move in to the centre (if similar stores are doing well).. and those who won't renew their lease in 6 or 11 yrs time (if they make it that long).

The RetailVision Report for 2013 has ranked Cardiff as 19th best retail destination with a annual revenue of £490 million ( 14th outside of the M25/London really, maybe 12th or 13th if you include Bluewater and one or two other places as London too).

http://www.bodyconfidential.co.uk/News-and-Events/Manchester-Is-Top-Retail-Destination-Outside-London

1. Oxford Street
2. Manchester
3. Birmingham
4. Glasgow
5. Westfield Stratford City Shopping Centre
6. Knightsbridge
7. Leeds
8. Nottingham
9. Edinburgh
10. Liverpool
11. Leicester
12. Westfield Shopping Centre - White City
13. Kingston upon Thames
14. Bristol
15. Reading
16. Newcastle-Upon-Tyne
17. Southampton
18. Cambridge
19. Cardiff
20. Norwich
21. Croydon
22. Brighton
23.Bluewater Shopping Centre
24. Meadowhall Shopping Centre
25. Chelsea
26. Sheffield
27. Brent Cross Shopping Centre
28. Belfast
29. Trafford Shopping Centre
30. Aberdeen
31. Hull
32. Plymouth
33. Merryhill Shopping Centre
34. Oxford
35. Guildford
36. Central Milton Keynes
37. Metro Shopping Centre
38. Regent Street South
39. Exeter
40. Derby
41. Bath
42. Watford-Hertfordshire
43. Sutton- Greater London
44. Maidstone
45. Crawley
46. Covent Garden
47. Bromley
48. Stoke-Upon-Trent
49. Cribbs Causeway
50. Peterborough

Sort of surprised Cardiff isn't ranked higher, especially in relation to the likes of Leicester, Southampton, Bristol etc (especially the latter, seeing as it has Bath and Cribbs Causeway nearby... actually I'm surprised at how low Bath is ranked). With regards to St Davids centre, it doesn't appear to the massive money generator that was planned when it was extended, which might explain a few things. Still prefer The Hayes as the main shopping thoroughfare to Queen Street though.

I don't buy a figure as low as £490 million. I think St David's pulls in about £400 million a year. Add in the other stores, and you've got to be more like £650 - 700 million. I'd put Cardiff about 11th in the list (ahead of Southampton, Cambridge, Reading, Kingston, Leicester and probably Bristol). The methods for calculating these ranks are always pretty dodge... and I'd take this one with the same pinch of salt as the Experian report that had us in 6th, above Liverpool, Edinburgh, Leeds and Nottingham.

The link won't work for me. Is it best (subjective) or most economically successful (less subjective but still open to interpretation)?

Anyone here know Leicester city centre? I don't and it always surprises me to see it so far up these sort of lists. Southampton may be performing better in economic terms (it is in the SE, more or less) but I wouldn't say it has the range of Cardiff or the quality in the built environment in the shopping centres.

Yeah, it does seem low but I imagine it's the same case for the other cities, I guess?
Though thinking about it, the retail scene away from the Hayes and the newer part of St Davids, is not entirely a picture of good health. Granted it's hardly a disaster, but the older malls such as the Capitol Centre or Queens Arcade have definitely seen a fall from grace over the past decade, and there does seem to be a higher frequency of empty stores, or at least shops which seem to have businesses that don't seem to last very long.
Thankfully the arcades seem to have weathered things a bit better, though given the type of niche establishments that are there, I don't suppose they'll proportionally contribute much to any expenditure figures?

But seeing as we don't know what criteria they have used, as you said, it's a case of a pinch of salt



Which ranking is that? this one?

http://www.experian.co.uk/marketing-services/news-retailscape-uk-retail-centres-best-placed-to-thrive.html

Cardiff is ranked a 5th for retail centres for strongest market potential but doesn't appear to be in the top 10 for actual retail spend. I suppose that's half good then, on the plus side there's recognition that cardiff has strong potential, and will hopefully prove attractive to retailers thinking in the long term. The bad side I suppose, is that the current economic climate means that retailers will be thinking about the immediate short-term and are more likely to set up shop in the 'big leagues' than here.

It's been a while since I've been there but it's not too bad for shopping. There's been a major expansion of one of their malls, similar to SD2, since I was there last. It's certainly bigger in scale and breadth to Cardiff (but not massively so), and there's no charming arcades but it sort of makes up for that by having lots of little side streets and secondary areas.
This is sort of a like for like comparison:

Queen Street = Humberstone Gate/High Street/Eastgate
St Davids = High Cross
Capitol centre/Queens Arcade = The Shires mall
Central market= Leicester Market
The Arcades= The Lanes
The Hayes = Market Street
St Marys street = Granby Street
Greyfriars/Womanby/Westgate= Belvoir street

The Castle Fine Art Gallery has opened in the Grand Arcade next to The White Company!

Is there any point in us setting up a 2014 thread... Doesn't seem as if anything is going on in the centre at all :/

Gilly Hicks will be closing next month - thats another MSU back on the market sadly!

On the other hand, it was nice to see St David's way looking a lot fuller when I walked through over Christmas! Great to see the addition of some pretty presentable stores... I guess Primark has had a positive effect on this area filling up recently!

So any news at all?

My daughter, who loves Gilly Hicks, confidently advised me that Hollister would be taking that unit over. She apparently had this information from a mate who was seeing the brother of a girl who works there. For those 'blessed' with teenage daughters will know this was presented as FACT and cannot be reasoned of argued with or against. Other than that I did hear that Lush were moving in.

I work for Hollister in Birmingham and we haven't heard any rumours about the GH store converting into Hollister however this could be very likely as all new Hco stores are all being Video fronted and it would be a shame to waste all those video screens when they are already in Cardiff! Additionally the GH unit is significantly bigger than the Cardiff Hco unit and as Hollister have out grown the size of their current unit, it would be ideal for Hollister to move to a larger more prominent store...

Abercrombie are keeping hold of their Gilly Hicks stores in the UK for as long as possible, due to the popularity of the brand in Britain... GH sales remain strong in the Uk however this cant be said for the brand globally which is why the brand is discontinuing!

Some of the readers might be surprised to know that Gilly Hicks in Cardiff is an extremely high earning store... The sales figures have been better than expected in this particular store!

By way of update, Internacionale have closed down. They moved from Capitol to the newest part of the old SD (if that makes sense) about a year ago.

On a more positive note work is being carried out in a unit next to H Samuel which I think is going to be a sandwich/bagel shop.

They didn't move, there were two stores in Cardiff and then the Capitol store closed. There is a repossession notice from the landlord on the door of the St Davids store.

It's been a long time since iv'e been shopping in leicester but from what i remember and what iv'e looked up leicester has some of the best victorian arcades anywhere. I thought there was atleast 4 arcades but i can't find links to them however the silver arcade has just had £3 million referbishment and is a 4 story victorian arcade grade 2 listed. There is also the royal arcade.
Highcross shopping center ( shires ) is about the same size as st davids and there is also the haymarket shopping center which has about 250k sq ft of retail space.

St. Davids Update!

- The Perfume Shop has opened their new format store in their relocated Cathedral Walk location.

- Lansdown has opened up a second store in the centre on Cathedral walk (in the Baci unit).

- Shoe Zone are in the process of closing down their St David's Walk store (signs say they are relocating).

- Gilly Hicks have pushed back their closure date once again. USA locations closed in January and UK locations were originally expected to close in February, however the new closure date for UK stores is mid April! The store has new season collections and there were a lot of GH bags around the centre today... Suggests that GH in the UK was a lot successful than their US venture.

- St David's Walk now has a few vacant units, which is dissapointing especially as it was virually 100% let at one point! (Modelzone, Internacionale, Shoe Zone & the yet to be occupied unit)

Whittard of Chelsea are going to be opening their first ever kiosk in SD2 by John Lewis. It will be an experiment to see if the concept can be financially solvent, and the kiosk itself will be in the shape of a boat. They will also give out free samples.

It looks like LK Bennett are either closing their store or relocating elsewhere.

There is an application for change of use to A3 with a suggestion that an outfit called Wahaca are taking over the unit. Apparently they do quality Mexican street food. Is Mexican food the new trendy cuisine now?

Anyway they are applying for change of use not just for the ground floor but also the upper floor a la Cosy Club which if my calculations are correct would mean that the unit next to John Lewis on the upper level of the Grand Arcade will finally have a tenant.

Wahaca will do well and looks great. There are a few in london, although aren't that cheap. Great addition though. Might be better on Habitat....

The Wahaca restaurants in London are constantly packed and the food is great. A good addition to SD. The large unit on the 1st floor next to John Lewis will be split into 2, the rear part will be Wahaca and the part facing the Grand Arcade will be a smaller retail unit. I think they've struggled to let the unit as a whole due to it's size.

There are no Wahaca's outside London at present so good that they've chosen Cardiff.

LK Bennett always looks to be empty - so I'd be unsurprised if they are bailing out of the city. Although it could be the case that they are going inside to be closer to other fashion retailers like Karen Millen or the John Lewis womenswear department. (I'm surprised more women's fashion stores haven't been concentrated on the uppper floor of the Grand Arcade between Debenhams and John Lewis's women's departments.. more proof that St Davids hasn't been engaging in the kind of space and location optimisation that the likes of Westfield engage in).

I thought LK Bennett were already in John Lewis ? They certainly were when their standalone store opened. I always found their choice of a fairly quiet location and the fact that they had clothes being sold a stone's throw away in John Lewis a little odd.

I know this is at Tredegar Street but what happened to plans for the kiosks/stalls in Hills street ?

Gilly Hicks Cardiff will be the last store of the brand to close! All the London stores are expecting to close mid April, with Cardiff's store closing mid May!

Former Goliath and David empty unit has been under negotiations with Timberland, a property buyer for them came into store yesterday and asked how business was!

Timberland used to be in the centre where love coffee now are.

If Timberland didn't make money there I doubt the Grand Arcade will be much different. They were right next to M&S before, hardly a dead area. Maybe SD are offering a better rent deal?

Timberland is very fashionable at the moment, according to my teenage daughter at least.

I work in a shop next door to Timberlands Birmingham Bullring store and one of the girls who works there told me they are taking double of what they took two years a go... I think it's fair to say Timberland is back in fashion big time right now! Probably the reason why they are making a comeback in the city?

Walked through the centre on Monday and I would say that the centre is looking really bleak right now! Probably the worst it has looked since it opened!

What stores have closed of recent? I noticed GH is boarded up now...

I agree. I walked though the new part of the centre earlier this week and didn't think it looked great. It had an empty feel to it on the upper level. There's some new cheap looking pop up shop next to Mothercare. In fact that area - with New Look, DV8 and USC is starting to feel a bit downmarket.

Not sure of this is the most up to date of the threads but looks like Calivn Klein is closing down. Anotherone bites the dust.