3DReid's proposal for the remodelled Primark/ex-BHS building

Interesting retail things always seem to happen on Tyneside while I’m on holiday! This time, I returned from Slovenia yesterday – hence the lack of recent blog posts – to find that the planning application for Newcastle’s new Primark flagship has been submitted while I’ve been away.

While the news of Primark’s expansion has been known since the adjacent BHS store began closing down in January, the planning application is significant in revealing for the first time the shape, size and appearance of the proposed store.

A more detailed trawl through the application’s 52 accompanying documents will have to wait until I’ve caught up with my post-holiday tasks, but we now know that the store will be huge – with 10,650 sqm (114,636 sq ft) of retail floorspace – and that it will involve a radical remodelling, above, of the property’s frontages to both Northumberland Road and Northumberland Street. The Evening Chronicle’s coverage of the story suggests that 200 new part-time jobs will be created as a result of the expansion.

...and how it looked before (7 Mar 2010)

Judging by the comments at SkyscraperCity, reaction to 3DReid’s radical redesign seems mixed, with some forum members – not entirely unjustly – likening the new look to that of an east European department store. To be fair, the slightly grainy quality of the renders makes it difficult to draw firm conclusions, but there’s little doubt in my mind that almost anything would be an improvement on what’s currently there. The introduction of much more glazing and what looks like an elaborate lighting scheme are particularly welcome in enlivening what has, to date, always been a blank and unforgiving façade.

How the new BHS will look. Image by Dalziel & Pow

With Primark’s proposals coming hot on the heels of BHS’s plans for an equally radical reworking of the adjacent former Next store, above, 2011 is certainly shaping up to be a significant year for Newcastle city centre retail. Readers, journalists and visitors to Newcastle often ask me to summarise what’s currently happening in the city centre, so here, by way of reminder, are the key developments that any Newcastle retail watcher should include within their itinerary.

Northumberland Street

Cotswold, Northumberland Street, Newcastle (14 Mar 2011)

• At the top end of Northumberland Street, opposite M&S, preparatory work is underway on Newcastle’s new Primark, expanding the chain’s existing store (in a former C&A unit) into the vacated BHS site.
• Next door, the former Next is being transformed into a four-storey, new-concept BHS. Plans for a bold new frontage are still yet to be approved, but Arcadia Group says that the store is expected to open by the end of the year.
• Further down the street, Clas Ohlson’s twelfth UK store is set to open next month, covering 20,333 sq ft of retail space on the site of the former Collectables store.
• Elsewhere in the street, the new Peacocks, Cotswold Outdoor and Currys/PC World stores – all opened during 2010 – are among those chains’ most impressive high-street shops, and are all worth a visit.

Grainger Town

Hotel Chocolat, Blackett Street, Newcastle (12 Jan 2011)

Around and south of Grey’s Monument, the potential loss of TJ Hughes – currently in closing-down mode – is undoubtedly a worry, but there are plenty of other signs that the area is bouncing back after several years of high vacancy rates:

• Big upcoming arrivals are the three-storey Urban Outfitters on the former Green Market site, and a new Calvin Klein Underwear shop in the former Kurt Geiger next door.
• Meanwhile, the fabulous Hotel Chocolat in Blackett Street, H&M in Grey Street and Jaeger London in Grainger Street are among the recent arrivals that have helped to improve the retail offer in the southern part of the city centre.
• As far as specialist retail is concerned, the Market Street area seems to have established itself as Newcastle’s ‘outdoor retail’ focus, with the long-established Tiso recently joined by Blacks and the well-regarded independent Start Cycles. Over the road, investments in the Grainger Market also seem to be paying off as a wealth of creative independents – such as the delightful foodie store Mmm… – build on the Market’s fresh-food heritage to create a truly modern and inspiring retail experience.

Eldon Square

Eldon Square extension (16 Feb 2010)

The opening of Eldon Square’s St Andrew’s Way extension eighteen months ago is arguably the impetus for all else that’s currently happening in the city centre, both in terms of freeing up space elsewhere and in prompting other retailers to up their game:

• The Debenhams-anchored St Andrew’s Way is universally impressive, with almost all the retailers there having created modern and innovative frontages, store environments or both. All Saints’ double-height window of sewing machines always catches the eye, while Hollister has given Newcastle an instore experience that is completely on-brand, appeals to all the senses (sight, smell, touch…), and is unlike anything else currently in the city.
• Among the units freed up by those retailers now in St Andrew’s Way, the recently opened Next has transformed the old Arcadia space into a store that is unrecognisable – inside and out – from what it used to be. Elsewhere, Kurt Geiger, Foot Locker and Barratts have all created new, eyecatching stores within the older parts of the shopping centre, replacing their older and smaller shops elsewhere.

That’s my snapshot of some of the current and recent interesting happenings in Newcastle city centre, but do feel free, as always, to add your own highlights using the comments form below!

New Poundland store, Gateshead (21 Sep 2010)

Returning home after a two-week holiday in Montenegro (more of which in due course), it seems like quite a lot has been happening within Tyneside’s retail scene while I’ve been away. 

As well as Asda’s plans for the old Byker Woolies getting the green light, and Northumberland Street seeing “exploratory digging” ahead of gaining 100 security bollards, there’s a slew of five new store openings taking place in Newcastle, Gateshead and MetroCentre yesterday, today and tomorrow – some of them known for a while, but others a little more unexpected. However, though varying in scale and relative importance, all these new arrivals are interesting in their own way, and represent positive news for their respective locations. 

TK Maxx site at MetroCentre, back in March

Yesterday (Thursday) saw the long-awaited opening of the combined TK Maxx and HomeSense at MetroCentre – previously blogged about here – which occupies a 45,000 sq ft unit on the site of the old Odeon cinema. I’m yet to pay a visit, but an investment of this scale should provide a shot in the arm for what has previously been a very tired-looking Blue Mall, despite all the pedestrian traffic that passes through on its way from the nearby Transport Interchange. 

Also yesterday, Gateshead town centre had the unusual attraction of a store opening of its own, with Poundland setting up shop in the former Woolworths. Though there were some rumours about Poundland’s imminent arrival in the last month or two, the speed with the new High Street store has been opened is pretty impressive, with no sign of anything happening on site in the week or two preceding my holiday. 

Again, it’s a great boost for a site that had previously seemed destined for long-term vacancy, and can only have been helped by the start of demolition work on the nearby Get Carter car park – a tangible sign, at last, that Gateshead town centre is moving forward. Poundland’s decision to get in now seems like a canny move, as the location is bound to benefit massively, in the longer term, from the Trinity Square redevelopment. Prior to that, the store is also, as I noted before, opposite the planned temporary Tesco that will trade once the existing supermarket is demolished. 

The new Clinton Cards site in Eldon Square, photographed last month (6 Aug 2010)

Today, Newcastle’s Eldon Square has also had a couple of notable openings, including the new combined Clinton Cards and Pure Party in Douglas Way’s old River Island unit – mentioned previously here – and yet another new Starbucks, this time in St Andrew’s Way. Visiting Eldon Square a few days ago, I noticed that the existing Clintons has indeed closed, leaving a decent-sized vacant unit in Blackettbridge. Meanwhile, the new Starbucks sits next to Debenhams, occupying the previously empty large space between the department store and the lifts. All of a sudden, the layout of that part of the mall begins to make a lot more sense.

Existing Kurt Geiger in Grainger Street, Newcastle

Given Eldon Square’s current form, the old Clinton’s is unlikely to be empty for very long. One store it won’t be housing, however, is Kurt Geiger, with work already underway on creating a flagship store for the shoe retailer within the recently closed Barratts unit in Hotspur Way. Assuming that Kurt Geiger moves from its existing location in Grainger Street, this will begin the process of freeing up the ground floor space needed for the reported three-storey Urban Outfitters store within the current Green Market building.

Existing Apple Store, Eldon Square (16 Feb 2010). Photograph by Peter (aka 'Newcastle Historian')

Of all this weekend’s openings though, the most notable has to be that of the new Apple Store at MetroCentre. Though the store’s impending arrival is no surprise, having been known since May, its opening date has been kept something of a surprise. Indeed, the Chronicle only revealed the news three days ago, ahead of the store’s opening at 10am tomorrow (Saturday). Unsurprisingly, the store is located in the Debenham’s-anchored Red Mall – the most modern and attractive part of MetroCentre – occupying the unit that housed USC prior to that retailer’s recent relocation.

As the Chronicle rightly observes, it’s a real coup for MetroCentre  – and for Capital Shopping Centres – to have signed up Apple for a second Tyneside shop when there are still fewer than 30 Apple Stores in the UK, including some notable locations, such as Edinburgh and Leeds, where the retailer is not yet represented at all.

Other than here, only Bristol, Manchester and London feature Apple Stores simultaneously in both city centre and out-of-town locations – a sign, one must imagine, that the Eldon Square shop is already surpassing Apple’s expectations, and a great signal to other retailers that Tyneside retail is in pretty fine fettle right now.

139-153 Grainger Street, Newcastle (22 Jan 2010)

As someone with an appetite for retail news stories, I like to occasionally visit Newcastle City Council’s planning applications website. Often, planning applications are where interesting developments in the world of retail first come to light, or can be useful in confirming speculation that such-and-such a retailer is indeed looking to move into such-and-such a property.

The latest application to capture my attention (2009/1844/01/LBC) relates to 139-153 Grainger Street in Newcastle city centre, close to Grey’s Monument and the High Friars entrance to Eldon Square. As you can see, the summary text of the application suggests that some quite significant reconfiguration of the property is on the cards:

Listed Building Application: Internal works to all floors including reinstatement of original 2nd floor level, creation of lift shaft from basement to 3rd floor, removal and installation of partitions, removal of staircase from basement to 1st floor and creation of staircase from 2nd to first floor.

What, you might ask, occupies 139-153 Grainger Street at the moment? Well, Grade II-listed and part of Richard Grainger’s celebrated 1830s development of the city centre, the building’s ground floor currently houses retailers such as Vodafone, Phones 4U, Dune, Jigsaw and Kurt Geiger. However, the adjacent French Connection store is a separate property.

Though it’s difficult to conceive from the street, the first and second floors of 139-153 Grainger Street – accessible only from inside the Eldon Square shopping centre – are what accommodate the current Green Market at High Friars, and before that the ill-fated music retailer MVC. (I, for one, had not appreciated until now that the MVC / Green Market site is not an integral part of the Eldon Square mall, but instead is under the entirely separate ownership of Aviva Investors Pensions Ltd.) Somewhat controversially, you may recall, the Green Market at High Friars opened in May 2007 as a temporary replacement of sorts for the previous and much larger Greenmarket (spelt as one word) in Clayton Street, which was closed down in order to make space for the St Andrew’s Way extension of Eldon Square.

Green Market entrance, Nelson Street (22 Jan 2010)

None the wiser as to how these existing retail uses would be affected by the proposed changes, I trawled through the 34 documents attached to the application – containing plans, correspondence and other information – in order to draw some conclusions. This exercise revealed some interesting findings.

First, the most notable structural change proposed will involve the second floor of the building – previously lowered in the 1980s to align with the mall level of the Eldon Square shopping centre – being restored to its original height. This will result in the floor levels of the building once again corresponding to the proportions of the façade, where currently the lowered second floor is visible through the first floor windows. At the moment, if I understand correctly, the second floor is what houses the upper level of the Green Market.

Current second floor level visible through first floor windows (22 Jan 2010)

Second – and perhaps most significantly – the Design and Access Statement prepared by the planning consultants states that “A new tenant has been secured for the building who will occupy one of the ground floor units and the remainder of the upper floors”. The first and second floors will be for retail use, with the third floor providing “staff facilities and storage”.

Existing ground floor retailers at 139-153 Grainger Street (22 Jan 2010)

To allow the building to function as a three-storey unit for a single retailer, the plans also envisage the insertion of stairs and a lift to link together all the floors. In addition, the Design and Access Statement notes that “there will no longer be a connection between the building and the Eldon Shopping Centre [sic] and a dividing wall is proposed between the two buildings”.

So, in summary, what does all this actually mean?

1. A new and quite sizeable three-storey unit is being created for a tenant that has already been signed up – but we don’t know who yet. Could it perhaps be Urban Outfitters, recently speculated to be coming to Newcastle, and which would sit well among the other fashion stores at that end of Grainger Street? If so, this would be a significant shot in the arm for Grainger Town, given that it has seemed to be struggling of late.
2. One of the existing retailers facing Grainger Street must be about to leave or move in order to free up the ground floor space that is required. I’m not aware, however, that any of the current retailers in the building are signed up to move to the Eldon Square extension.
3. The proposed development will inevitably involve the closure of the Green Market at High Friars.

The apparent closure of the Green Market at High Friars is not wholly unexpected – when I dropped by a few days ago it was quite a sad experience, with only a handful of stallholders hanging on across the two floors. Indeed, when the plan to include a new Greenmarket within the St Andrew’s Way redevelopment was dropped in June 2008, many of the former traders had either wound down their businesses following the closure of the previous Greenmarket, had relocated to the nearby Grainger Market, or were struggling to operate successfully from the out-of-the-way High Friars site.

Nevertheless, unless I’ve missed something, the lack of any coverage – or perhaps even awareness – of what appears to be the current Green Market’s impending closure is surprising.

True, today’s Green Market is undoubtedly a pale imitation of its predecessors, and it’s difficult to make much of a case for saving what remains. However, given the Green Market’s long history – starting as an open-air market outside St Andrew’s Church in Newgate Street – and multiple subsequent incarnations, it would surely be a shame if it simply vanished without anyone realising.