It's a big improvement on the current facade and that's some investment considering the current store is quite new.

At least it stays on Queen Street and not in SD2 which was rumoured around the time the extension opened.

I agree. SD2 is taking most of the retail in the city, that is why St Mary's street is no longer what it once was.

I don't think that the High St is dead or about to die - won't landlords presumably just have to drop their rents accordingly if the retail shit hits the fan on the High St? Judging by the current rents that they receive, my heart doesn't exactly bleed in sympathy.

I think that 'out of town' shopping and internet shopping in particular will continue to rise and become even more 'normalised behaviour' than they are now. The question is whether this growth will take away from the High St or will total consumption just keep on going up (remember that the population is also rising so that will generally mean greater demand). We have become so addicted to a consumerist society that I just can't see it changing any time soon.

I have always found it rather odd that (given the expensive costs of properties on the High St),how relatively little effort is expended upon making alternative uses of the floors above ground level.

Most of the (above ground) floors of the properties on St Mary St/High St(!) are dusty old windows which presumably are mainly empty or used for storage. You'd swear that these buildings were liabilities rather than assets the way that they are neglected. There must be quite a bit of development value lying dormant in these properties which landlords could exploit given the right planning conditions etc.

I think its a mix of storage, but also a fair bit of grade B office space.. although a chunk of that would be empty.

The Primark frontage is definitely an improvement on the awful façade that is currently there, it would also increase St. David's square footage. I do feel that the street in between Boots and the Starbucks is wasted for them. If they were clever they would turn that into another entrance because it is only used by dead frontage, a Greg's, part of the Starbucks, EE's windows a games arcade and the doomed unit which flows into the centre. It surely couldn't be too expensive for the centre to buy it out and with that and the Primark extension it should surely bring that back into the top 10 biggest shopping centres in the UK and further cement Cardiff's reputation as a shopping destination?

A piece on Cardiff Online about Cardiff's tea shops says that Barker clothing is to close, and the very popular coffee shop expand in to the remaining shop unit.

That really puts paid to High Street being a shopping area, which is a shame. And Barker seemed to be reasonably busy when I went in, although that was only ever right before Christmas and the immediate post-Christmas sales. Perhaps the rest of the year it was struggling. The decline of Cardiff's independent fashion retailers really is pretty sad and seems to stand in stark contrast to our near-neighbours in Bristol. In a recent visit I was genuinely impressed by the (somewhat grimey) bohemian feel of part of the city, with random little cafes, pubs, clothes shops, nick nack shops, even junk shops.. and then the thriving retail on Park Road, and in Clifton, just a little way from the all-singing all-dancing Cabot Circus. Why does it seem Cardiff can't support both the independents and the chains? Is St David's a bit too overbearing for the Cardiff catchment?


One final concern is that with a High Street frontage, will people going to the coffee shop now ignore Castle Arcade itself? Would be a shame if that was the case. It does show the strength of the coffee shop sector however, and is a pleasant change from yet more Starbucks and Costa. The council really should let High St / St Mary's street evolve and stop pretending its a regular shopping street. Perhaps there is a role for more specialised shops (e.g. music, fabrics, furnishings), but fashion is done and dusted I reckon.

Cardiff

So Barkers coffee is finally taking the last patch from its clothing namesake is it?

This has always been on the cards given that the coffee element has already expanded twice into the clothes section. Having an entrance on High St will also enable the tobacco fraternity to visit (ie seats outside on High St which will look tidy) - hitherto you couldn't smoke there because the outdoor seats were still within the arcade.

I like Barkers a lot and am interested to see what its Tea shop will be like when it opens in High St Arcade. We do however seem to have hit a stage where I'm beginning to wonder whether people are going to the city centre these days just to have a coffee and a mull around.It's almost as if people never drunk tea or coffee when they went shopping a few decades ago.

We shoudln't forget that Cardiff still has lots of independents in the arcades and there's tha small alt fashion bit on Womanby St. Despite that, its definitely far more of a Primark Superdry Hollister clone town than any kind of alt fashionville.

Interesting about Barkers. High St/St Mary St does now seem dead for fashion. There is High and Mighty (although you could argue that was a specialist store) and another store near to the Cottage pub that I have never seen anyone go in or out of. Thats it I think.

As for independent fashion retailers or having the bohemian type atmosphere of Bristol I think there are a number of reasons. Firstly in the city centre (outside of the arcades) there are very few if any units suitable for small independent fashion retailers. There are some on Wellfield Rd and some in Pontcanna but neither of those two area's are big enough to constitute a 'scene'.

If Tudor Street or Salisbury Rd were to be renovated I could imagine either of those places becoming a sort of studenty/bohemian type place - restaurants, cafes, independent fashion stores, bars, hotels etc etc. Unfortunately both area's are a long way from that.

Secondly Cardiff and it's hinterland is much more working class than Bristol. Paying £190 for a hand knitted tank top in an ethnic design is very much a middle class type of caper and is unlikely to attract a great deal of interest here.

Thirdly I think Bristol has long been a magnet for more 'enlightened' ways of living whereas Cardiff has been up until lately a docks and steel town, conservative with a small c and focused on traditional working class values.

In some ways I'm a little bit envious of Bristol and its green/independent credentials but there is also something insufferably smug about it all as well.

HMV have closed their Queen St store today apparently. I don't know if this is an ominous sign for the company but it leaves a big void. That's a big 3 storey shop so could attract a big name.

Bit of a sad day as that's Cardiff's last big record shop gone.

Just rang hmv head office to ask whether the Queen Street store had closed down and the lady informed me that both the Queen Street store and St Davids store were still open for the mean time

there is a pop-up hmv in the grand arcade



catapult is still going

It seems that it was closed to prepare for a massive sale, the HMV head office bod's comments about being open for the mean time are a bit ominous though!

I have a friend who works there. She said that all of the staff are feeling tense and nobody knows what HMV will do next. Needles to say, there may soon be a lot more unemployed in Cardiff.

Cardiff desperately needs Pull & Bear!

There are 3 Pull and Bear stores in London, Oxford St and both Westfield's and one in Liverpool.

Pull & Bear has a store in Dublin which isn't so tiny - 2nd biggest city after London in ROI/UK I think. In fact, most major international chains have a presence in Dublin as you'd expect from a capital city - Harvey Nicks, A&F, even a Forever 21 (still no sign of them in Cardiff, thought they were rumoured for SD2 at one stage).

I think it may be the third biggest city; London, Birmingham, Dublin, but don't quite me on that. It depends on how you count a city. London is the biggest city in Europe whilst Paris has the largest metropolitan region but London is defined as a greater area than Paris. So it is all subjective really.

I do find it odd that Pull&Bear hasn't made the plunge into other U.K cities. In Europe it is in almost every major city. When I lived in Barcelona there were around 10 within a square mile of each other. Maybe Zara isn't doing so well here, so the group have decided not to expand into Cardiff.

On a different note, is BHS leaving the city completely or is it doing a swap with Primark? Does anybody know?

On that note, Zara in Cardiff is extremely successful and busy - Very surprised Pull & Bear aren't expanding in the UK right now, its like a European Topshop/Topman which is what all the teenagers are into today... Pull&Bear could be really successful in that market here in the UK, in particular Cardiff. I can see them expanding into cities such as Cardiff, Leeds & Manchester soon

To answer the question posed above I think BHS will be re-opening in the current Primark unit once that has been vacated. That looks as though it may be some time as its almost certain Primark will stay there until the refurb of the BHS premises for which they have just applied for planning permission. Unlikely to be completed until at least 6 months hence.

That means that all of the poor buggers working at NHS at the moment will not have a job for the next few months and even if they do get re-hired by BHS will lose continuity of service.

Other retail related news - Ladbrokes have applied to open at 19 Caroline St (currently Rosarios Steakhouse). The march of the betting shop continues - Ladbrokes are due to open in the old Amex unit at the top end of Queen St as well and Corals have recently opened in Churchill Way. It would be interesting to tot up the amount of betting shops in the city centre v coffee shops. The two retail success stories of the noughties or so it seems.

SP- Well one reason that they (and other retailers) are in Dublin and not in Cardiff is because the Republic of Ireland has had the kind of economic growth (albeit of the boom and bust variety!) over the past two decades that we can only dream of in Wales (ie FAR more spending power than us impoverished Taffs across the pond).

There are loads of reasons why certain retailers don't have a presence in some 'seemingly' obvious locations - saturated marketplace, expensive rents, logistics of being able to integrate into existing operations, single currency considerations etc. C&A (they were very much like H&M before H&M spread to the UK) always used to be in the UK (roughly located where Primark are now) and still operate successfully throughout continental Europe but don't have any plans to spread back into the UK.

Re: Biggest city in Europe - isn't it Moscow?

Karl - yet another betting shop!?! I think that I have no concept of just how many daily gamblers there are on the streets these days. Makes yer wonder deosn't it.

Jantra will be popping open a bottle of Tesco Value Prosecco as we speak.....

Wizard, wasn't questioning Dublin's spending power, just thought it was weird that Pull&Bear has chosen Liverpool over Birmingham.

It does seem that Moscow is bigger, by quite a bit too, but London is biggest in the E.U. My bad.

I hear HMV will be entering administration tomorrow. Another big empty store on Queen st ???

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/jan/14/hmv-prepares-call-administrators?CMP=twt_fd

just come up on the Guardian's twitter feed.

Sad nevertheless and when I studied in the UK (a few years ago now) HMV (along with Virgin megastores and Our Price), was one of the few shops that interested me on the high street. Whilst this is a classic case of internet substitution it is also true of the UK that the high street is disproportionately saddled with business rates and fiscal inequality.

I cannot say I am tempted to invest in retail in the UK substantially as the tax man will pay me a visit before I even have a chance of making a profit. Terrible really.

When I saw the above Poster's name on this thread, my heart leapt! I thought, perhaps, that Bayscape was going to be relocated to the Queen Street area!!??

Thank you. I certainly hope this particular brand survives in some form on the High Street once it's load has been lightened.

Pull and Bear clothes and likewise Berksha are dirt cheap. It kind of makes me wonder why they haven't turned up in places like Cardiff yet but there could be a number of reasons why I guess. It's a shame, they do sell half decent stuff and everything I purchased from them either when in Spain or in Dubai has been of an okay quality when considering the price.

Really sad about HMV, I feel for their staff although I do hope the flip side if they do disappear entirely is that Spillers will benefit. I fear for them as well though, between downloads, supermarkets and sites like Play.com and Amazon I do wonder if time is up for stores that sell music or video. It makes me feel very very old seeing the death of the likes of those stores.

Apparently vinyl sales are up 18% on the previous year.

Places like Hotel Chocolat are thriving yet Thorntons is struggling.

Maybe this points to specialist stores surviving whilst the stores with a general, mass market offer will struggle when competing with Amazon and the supermarkets etc.

Places like Spillers offer gig tickets, merchandise, vinyl, collectable records, access to local bands that HMV have or never will hear of etc etc. I'm sure that there will be a place for a Spillers type outlet in any sizeable conurbation. They appeal to serious music purchaser rather than someone looking for a Now Thats What I Call Music 158 download. Likewise you see specialist bookshops continuing to survive in the arcades on fairly hefty rents when the likes of Borders have gone under and Waterstones are constantly under pressure.

I'm hoping that's the case anyway because the alternative is awful.

I can't imagine just purchasing music or literature over the internet and certainly can't imagine purchasing it digitally instead of having the physical product. When I was younger the idea was that you could in effect 'curate' your own collection - that a bookshelf or a CD/record rack said something about who you were and reflected a journey you had taken in gaining knowledge and in changing taste. These days it seems as though music and literature is fleeting and disposable, that its not about collecting things but having instant access to it. The way in which kids consume music these days seems - to me at least - to be superficial and impermanent. I can't get my head around it to be honest.

Indeed, it really leaves just Apple, Amazon, and the Supermarkets...

.. which is why there is some talk about HMV surviving, but significantly slimmed down. Perhaps 50 big stores across the country. The Record Labels don't want to be fully dependent on downloads and e-retailers..HMV means they have a little more bargaining power.

Maybe to help out our physical retailers there should be a two tier VAT system. One for physical purchases and one for online purchases. It may be able to even the playing field between tax-dodging Amazon and the other retailers.

Or make business rates progressive rather than premises linked. A large warehouse (Amazon) per sqft is somewhat cheaper than a customer facing high street store (HMV).