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St. Davids Shopping Centre

if it's about Cardiff.. Sport, Entertainment, Transportation, Business, Development Projects, Leisure, Eating, Drinking, Nightlife, Shopping, Train Spotting! etc.. then we want it here!
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jonnywill25

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Re: St. Davids Shopping Centre

PostThu Dec 22, 2016 6:47 pm

Noticed today that MANGO have closed their store on the Lower Grand Arcade.
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DaveE

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Re: St. Davids Shopping Centre

PostTue Jan 03, 2017 8:43 pm

Looks like USC are closing down (again!). This time it says there are 5 days left so you never know.. I think it's owned by Sports Direct these days so like the other stores it will be having a closing down sale for the next few years. Still another fairly big gap in the centre.
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Adar Glas

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Re: St. Davids Shopping Centre

PostWed Jan 04, 2017 10:26 pm

DaveE wrote:Looks like USC are closing down (again!). This time it says there are 5 days left so you never know.. I think it's owned by Sports Direct these days so like the other stores it will be having a closing down sale for the next few years. Still another fairly big gap in the centre.


I received an email from USC a few weeks ago advising that the store was due to close soon. I seem to recall them sending me a similar email a couple of years ago and seeing closing down signs only for the store to remain open, maybe my imagination though.
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dave

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Re: St. Davids Shopping Centre

PostTue Jan 10, 2017 6:29 pm

Mothercare to close store in Cardiff's St David's Centre

Mothercare is closing its store in the St David's Centre in Cardiff.

The last day of trading for the shop is January 19 and stock in the store is now on sale.

A Mothercare spokesperson said: "Mothercare in St David’s shopping centre, Cardiff will close on January 19 and we will be emailing our customers in the area to advise them of the closure.

"We greatly value their loyalty and support and hope they will continue to shop with us at our nearby store at the City Link retail park, on Newport Road, and via our website.

"Our Cardiff store is part of a larger transformation plan for our business to reconfigure our store estate and provide a truly omnichannel shopping experience for our customers."

READ MORE
Welsh retailers face challenging period as footfall falls in lead up to Christmas
Mothercare declined to comment on plans for staff currently working in the St David's shop.

The retailer, specialising in baby, toddler and maternity products, has stores on Newport Road and Culverhouse Cross in the capital.

A spokesperson for St David’s said: "While we’re sorry to be saying goodbye to Mothercare, 2017 is set to be an exciting year for St David’s and we will be announcing new brands very soon."
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jonnywill25

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Re: St. Davids Shopping Centre

PostTue Jan 10, 2017 9:59 pm

USC have managed to renegotiate their lease and are no longer closing down! Staff informed me that a new 5 year lease was signed the day before yesterday. I'm actually slightly disappointed about this because USC would be better suited to Queen Street and I'm not a huge fan of the store design and layout.

Mothercare have been trying to offload their lease for some time now, so this is no surprise!
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Simon_SW17

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Re: St. Davids Shopping Centre

PostWed Jan 11, 2017 2:12 am

I wonder if they've reassigned the lease? Maybe to one of these new brands that St. David's speak of.

Any word on who may be signing up this year?
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Ben In London

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Re: St. Davids Shopping Centre

PostWed Jan 11, 2017 10:58 am

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RandomComment

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Re: St. Davids Shopping Centre

PostWed Jan 11, 2017 2:03 pm

jonnywill25 wrote:USC have managed to renegotiate their lease and are no longer closing down! Staff informed me that a new 5 year lease was signed the day before yesterday. I'm actually slightly disappointed about this because USC would be better suited to Queen Street and I'm not a huge fan of the store design and layout.

Mothercare have been trying to offload their lease for some time now, so this is no surprise!


It would look very bad to have two empty stores just as you enter the Upper Grand Arcade. But the fact they have cut a deal with SD2 suggests demand must actually be pretty weak - because such deals risk encouraging other occupiers to try to cut deals, thereby undermining rents more generally.
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RandomComment

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Re: St. Davids Shopping Centre

PostWed Jan 11, 2017 2:16 pm

More generally, I've been thinking about the performance of Cardiff City Centre as a retail destination. I think its been doing somewhat badly for a while now. Capitol is dead on its feet. Queens Arcade is pretty full but a bit of a hotch potch, and I think quite a few occupiers on short leases. Queen Street has a fair number of voids, including in fairly prime pitches. And St Davids seems to be struggling to fill a number of smaller units (at the bottom end of the lower Grand Arcade, and near M&S, for instance) and a number of the bigger units on the Grand Arcade. In particular, it doesn't seem to attract or retain the higher end retailers who may take the smaller units, and doesn't seem that good at getting the occupiers to take the mid-large units. Why is this?
a) Did the crash and long hangover mean lower overall retail spend?
b) Has the out of town market in South East Wales taken a growing share of spend not only from the secondary centres (like Ponty) but also the primary centre of Cardiff?
c) Has online commerce grown more rapidly than expected?

My gut feeling is that its (a) and (b), largely. Cardiff itself hasn't got too many out-of-town fashion stores. But over the last 10 years, two big out-of-town centres have developed in the Valleys to compete with Cardiff for that trade: Talbot Green and Cyfarthfa. A fair few people in Ponty now go up to Merthyr to do their shopping, preferring the free parking, and convenience of Cyfarthfa.

Likewise Swansea has been hit by the success of Trostre, Fforest Fach and Morfa.

Core cities in England like Manchester, Newcastle, Bristol, Leeds, etc, all face this competition but writ large - large out of town malls that we don't have in Wales. But I think the change in competition with out of town has been greater in Wales in recent years (the competition is longer-standing in England) and I think people in Wales do spend less on fashion as discussed before.

No big problem, but it is rather sad seeing quite a lot of empty units in Cardiff. It doesn't give a great impression of the city to visitors.
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Simon_SW17

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Re: St. Davids Shopping Centre

PostWed Jan 11, 2017 3:39 pm

I think that with a lot of Cardiff's catchment area being lower income, upper mid range to premium retailers who have dipped their toes in the water have failed and many more don't come as a result. We don't have Uniqlo, Pull & Bear, Harvey Nichols Beauty Bazaar, Desigual, Oliver Bonas, Whistles etc.

Stores that haven't lasted over the years include Ted Baker, Mango, Emporio Armani, Jaeger and probably several more that I can't remember now.

Cardiff has many of the mid to lower range stores that do really well, H&M has it's biggest UK store in St. David's, Primark is always mobbed, Next is a big store, there's one of only a handful of high street Matalan city centre stores in the UK plus the usual Top Shop, River Island, Peacocks and other chains. The problem is that they're all already here, what to do with the big MSUs in St. David's?

St. David's obviously see a problem as they're filling up voids with restaurants. Queen Street is filling up with value retailers like Wilko, Poundland etc but this isn't an option for the Grand Arcade so what's the plan?
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