St. Davids Shopping Centre

& yes Century Falcon, this is the unit that applied for a basement extension last month! All a bit bizarre

Perhaps Sports Direct have to temporarily move out to facilitate the extension...

Maybe I'm the only one here who's been in that Sport Direct shop - but they've always had a basement trading area - innit? Why apply for planning permission for something that already exists?

I guess they are making the basement bigger, extending it?

They are probably closing down to refurbish or something... does anyone know who the applicant was for the extension of the basement?

http://planning.cardiff.gov.uk/online-a ... APR_110905

If you look at the D&A statement it says the existing tenants have been given permission to extend their basement - and so need some safety alterations (something like smoke detection). So Sports Direct are "closing down" before reopening in a bigger, expanded store.

Shame they can't extend the basement area and give up a bit of the ground floor for a bit more street-level activity on Hill Street!

The extension more than doubles the size of the basement trading area, it looks huge. Their margins must be small, they must be getting a good rent deal for the extra space.

It's a shame that they're not giving up a proportion of the ground floor to something nicer.

The extension more than doubles the size of the basement trading area, it looks huge. Their margins must be small, they must be getting a good rent deal for the extra space.

I'm not sure the SD margins are small in all areas. As I understand the business model, as well as selling branded goods (Adidas, Nike, etc) at tight margins the company directly owns some brands. Basically they've bought up historic orphan brands like 'Lonsdale' and 'Slazenger' which are now effectively Sport Direct own brands. Presumably the margins on the latter are pretty healthy.

They've almost certainly got a very very very good deal on the extra space - it may even be free, with the occupier paying the capital costs, and service costs only. Its space that would otherwise be unused. At most it will be charged at zone D rents (1/8 of the headline rent).

The way retail rentals work is that you pay zone A rents for the first 20 feet of depth of the store. They are the 'headline' rates you normally hear quoted. In St Davids the amount varies between about £100 per square foot, and £400 per square foot depending on the particular retailer, the particular space (smaller, narrower spaces typically have higher zone As) etc. The average is something like £185. Beyond that is 20 ft of Zone B at 1/2 the rent (so £50 - 200, av £92.50), then 20 ft of Zone C at 1/4 rent (£25 - 100, av £46.25), then the remainder of the trading area is zone D at 1/8 the rent (so £12.50 to £50, Av: £23.13). Any floors without external access are all zone D (even if less than 60 ft to the exit).

If you had the plans for Sports Direct and knew their Zone A rental, could probably back out the max of what this is costing them to rent. But it won't be much. If its an extra 5000 square feet, at £23.00 thats like £115,000 a year. Would want to boost turnover by around £500,000 or so to cover that. I'd guess they are towards the lower end of rent rates. At £12.50 it'd be more like £62,500 a year, which isn't much for such a large square footage - would need about £300k turnover boost to cover.

It's a shame that Sports direct seem to be anchored in that unit. It kills any real activity in Hills Street.

Hills street is the least successful part of SD2 in terms of how it looks. It's too narrow so it doesn't get any sun, both sides have got quite blank frontages with Debenhams dominating one side and Sports Direct the other. Also the finish is quite poor - blank walls, galvanised steel doors, the steel mesh of the car park if you look up, the dated Debenhams facade, the grey plastic guttering hanging off the side the the St Davids service ramp, some of the pillars have been clad in the same stone as SD2 but others haven't, the disused toilets, etc etc

If I recall correctly the original plans envisaged Hills Street as being reinvented as an integral part of the city centre and there would be continental style kiosks etc.

If I recall correctly the original plans envisaged Hills Street as being reinvented as an integral part of the city centre and there would be continental style kiosks etc.

I seem to remember that Hills Street was due to be the new site for the open-air market - but that the 'enterprise units' in Barrack Lane were eventually accepted as a trade-off for the loss of the market. To be honest, the market had become a pretty sad place by the end - not surprising given how many times the traders had been shunted around the city.

I vaguely recollect that as well Ash. In truth I think the indoor market and the 5 or 6 fruit and veg stalls dotted around the city centre probably covers everything.