La Senza closing down in Newcastle (2 Jan 2012)

Since this is my first post of 2012, I must begin by wishing all Soult’s Retail View readers a very Happy New Year! Thank you to everyone who has commented, emailed, tweeted or visited during 2011, and I hope you will find many more posts to spark your interest during 2012.

As we enter 2012, the retail picture for the centre of Newcastle looks like repeating the trends of the last couple of years: various high-profile casualties amid one of the most challenging economic environments modern retailers have seen, countered by some exciting new arrivals and major retail schemes.

So, in the year ahead, what are some of the most significant things to look out for in Newcastle’s prime shopping locations?

Northumberland Street

Northumberland Street, Newcastle, with new BHS on the left (1 Jan 2012)

As I reported last week, the opening of the new BHS store in Newcastle’s premier retail location of Northumberland Street, expected sometime in the spring, will be one of the city’s major retail events of 2012. Local shoppers who are yet to experience one of the chain’s new-concept stores – such as the shop in Swindon that I visited in September – will be in for a pleasant surprise when the new four-storey store opens its doors in the old Next premises.

Beneath the scaffolding and wrap – which, as I noted previously, is due to come down in March – it’s just possible to see how the old façade has now been completely removed (below), ahead of the new BHS glass frontage being inserted.

BHS site, Northumberland Street (1 Jan 2012)

Next door, work to enable Primark’s expansion into the former BHS unit is also well underway, and, together with the new BHS, seems to be keeping local scaffolding companies busy (below). I understand, however, that we will have to wait until the end of the year for those works – which include another revamped frontage – to be completed.

Site of Primark extension, Newcastle (1 Jan 2012)

Elsewhere in Northumberland Street, the absence of any currently empty units means that new happenings in 2012 are likely to be the result of rebrands, relocations or closures.

In my previous post, I highlighted one major Northumberland Street retailer that’s looking to exit its existing store, ahead of a relocation to smaller premises elsewhere in the city centre. Its situation – being tied into expensive space that is now regarded as significantly overrented – is far from unique; however, with the St Andrew’s Way extension to Eldon Square (and the subsequent shuffling of other retailers, such as Next, BHS and Primark) having mopped up much of the demand for MSUs (major space units) in the city, I understand that finding a replacement occupier is proving a challenge.

As far as rebrands are concerned, Northumberland Street’s Northern Rock branch will no doubt be rebranded as Virgin Money during 2012; though banks tend to fall outside my blogging remit, it’s interesting that Virgin Money is referring to the locations it has acquired as ‘stores’ rather than ‘branches’, seemingly drawing inspiration from the best of retail as it seeks to create a “bright, relaxed, comfortable environment to come and sort out money matters, quickly and easily”.

Locations information on the Virgin Money website (4 Jan 2012)

To complement its ’stores’, there are also set to be Virgin Money Lounges in five cities – Edinburgh, Newcastle, Norwich, Manchester and London – providing a “place where our customers and their guests can relax”; it’s not clear, however, whether Newcastle’s promised Virgin Money Lounge will occupy one of the city’s two existing branch sites or new premises elsewhere. In Manchester, I’m told that the soon-to-open Virgin Money Lounge has taken over entirely new landmark premises, in addition to the established Northern Rock branch nearby, so it will be interesting to see whether the same approach is taken in Newcastle.

La Senza closing down in Newcastle (2 Jan 2012)

On the closure front, La Senza looks set to be Northumberland Street’s first retail casualty of 2012, following the lingerie chain’s announcement that it intends to enter administration. While the firm has blamed “trading conditions in La Senza’s high street locations and the overall macro environment which are having an adverse effect on the company”, such a statement fails to explain why La Senza has failed when many other retailers are successfully weathering the storm.

One suggestion, based on what my female friends have told me, is that La Senza may have fallen into the same trap as the collapsed young fashion chain Jane Norman by undermining its reputation for quality and, by extension, customers’ overall value perception of its products.

Of the retailer’s 146 UK stores, Newcastle is one of 81 locations that have launched ‘closing down’ sales, though there’s always a chance that any potential rescuer might decide to keep the store open after all. However, given its prominent location at the main entrance to Eldon Square, it’s unlikely that the unit would remain empty for long even if La Senza departed.

Blacks, Newcastle (8 Aug 2011)

Elsewhere in the city centre, the fate of several familar stores rests on whether their owners can turn around a sustained period of poor trading. The future of the outdoor retailer Blacks – which has a recently-opened store in Market Street – remains up in the air, while HMV has an uphill struggle to define its place in a changing entertainment market.

HMV’s Newcastle store, for example, is a curious mix of technology products, cold drinks and NUFC merchandise alongside the traditional CDs, DVDs and games; the overall impression is of a store that is cluttered, lacking in personality, and confused about what it’s trying to be.

HMV’s future – if it is to have one – must surely be in showcasing its credentials as a chain that lives, breathes, and is an authority on entertainment, as a way of differentiating itself from its online and supermarket competitors. However, the current presentation of piles of DVDs in a sub-supermarket-quality environment merely demonstrates the scale of the challenge ahead, rather than any sense of passion for the product.

HMV Newcastle (1 Jan 2012)

Time will tell whether my shot of a shuttered HMV on New Year’s Day, above – one of the few days of the year when most shops still close – becomes a more poignant image in the coming months.

Monument Mall

Wallis closing down, Newcastle (1 Jan 2012)

Further down, on the corner of Northumberland Street and Blackett Street, the closure of the Wallis and Evans store in Monument Mall this coming Saturday (7 January) is, hopefully, the harbinger of more positive developments ahead.

Evans closing down, Newcastle (1 Jan 2011)

Hammerson – who bought the shopping centre last April – had its ambitious plans to redevelop Monument Mall approved in November, and the Arcadia brands’ departure is a necessary step in enabling the scheme to proceed. Some high-profile departures under the previous ownership left Monument Mall’s generally small-sized units bereft of occupants, and Hammerson’s plans turn the centre inside out by filling in the mall’s circulation spaces and creating full-depth, street-facing shop and restaurant units.

Monument Mall, Newcastle (26 Oct 2011)

While Arcadia’s decision not to open new Evans and Wallis stores in Newcastle is a little disappointing, the move is in line with Sir Philip Green’s strategy of consolidating his space as leases expire. As the store-closure posters note, Wallis already has concessions in Newcastle’s Fenwick and Debenhams stores, while Evans is represented at both Metrocentre and Team Valley in Gateshead, but not elsewhere in Newcastle. Of the two, I’d therefore wager that Evans is more likely to make a reappearance in Newcastle city centre in due course – perhaps even as part of the aforementioned new BHS store – given its distinctive plus-size positioning and lack of Newcastle presence once the current store closes.

Peacocks, Northumberland Street (25 Jun 2010)

Incidentally, the only impact of the plans on the Peacocks store – which opened in the former Zavvi unit in 2010 – will be to block up its current mall entrances, leaving the main Northumberland Street frontage as the only access. The store will therefore revert to being the self-contained premises that it used to be as Woolworths and Next, in the years before Monument Mall opened in 1990.

So, what of the Monument Mall development itself? My understanding is that the new units are likely to be trading in time for Christmas 2013, and that Hammerson’s focus is on attracting niche retailers that will complement and reinforce the emerging Urban Outfitters-anchored high-end cluster around Grey’s Monument.

With strong demand for the medium-sized units in the new scheme, I understand that the development is expected to be fully let by spring this year. While no names have emerged, Hugo Boss – recently beaten by The North Face to the former Schuh unit opposite – must be a prime candidate, while there are plenty of expanding high-end fashion brands, such as White Stuff and Jack Wills, that are yet to establish a Newcastle presence.

Eldon Square

Northumberland Street entrance to Eldon Square (17 Jun 2010)

The dominance of Eldon Square within Newcastle is, arguably, one of the reasons why the city centre’s smaller shopping malls – whether Monument Mall, Eldon Garden or the earmarked-for-demolition Newgate Shopping Centre – have consistently failed to fly.

With 150 stores, Eldon Square’s vast size leaves it vulnerable to retail collapses, with the existing Barratts, Priceless and Past Times stores all at risk from those chains’ current difficulties. On the other hand, the shopping centre still has an impressive occupancy rate and a successful record of refilling those units that have recently become free.

New Next, Newcastle (10 May 2011)

While I understand that one retailer is mulling an exit, the new Debenhams-anchored St Andrew’s Way remains fully let to date, and almost all the space freed up by relocations to the new mall has been reoccupied by other tenants. Most notably, of course, Next opened a new flagship store in the former Arcadia space in May last year, which I’m told is trading very well.

The major problem area of Eldon Square is the Sidgate and High Friars stretch, running between the new Next and the mall entrance next to Grey’s Monument. Traditionally more value-focused than the rest of Eldon Square, this part of the shopping centre has suffered from its odd configuration and small-sized units, and currently has a relatively high number of voids, including the large two-storey store that New Look vacated when it moved to St Andrew’s Way two years ago.

However, my understanding is that the key former New Look unit will soon be reoccupied by a big-name retailer moving from elsewhere in the centre, whose space, in turn, is set to be occupied by a fashion chain not currently represented in Eldon Square. Ahead of any more radical reconfiguration of Sidgate and High Friars (which is surely likely to be required at some point in the future), the reoccupation of the former New Look site will at least restore some of the footfall that has been lost in the last couple of years.

Summary

So, for all that the media likes to portray 2012 as the year of a “high street bloodbath”, the reality in Newcastle city centre is more complex – and more positive – than the garish headlines suggest.

With both new and existing retailers still making significant commitments to the city centre – and, on the whole, decent demand for any space that becomes free – Newcastle seems well placed to see through the downturn and emerge in good condition on the other side.

No missing the fact that Peacocks is coming... (20 May 2010)

The opening of St Andrew’s Way back in February – and Hollister, belatedly, in April – may have been this year’s biggest retail events in Newcastle, but, three months on, there continue to be interesting and significant developments in fashion retail elsewhere in the city centre.

At Monument Mall, work is now well underway on the new Peacocks store, occupying the three-storey, 17,000 sq ft unit that formerly housed Zavvi, the Virgin Megastore, and before that Woolworths.

You can’t see anything happening inside from the ground floor of the Mall, or from Northumberland Street, as both frontages are boarded off. Rather, one of the most noticable things is that the Mall smells different to usual – of paint and wood, rather than Millies Cookies!

Northumberland Street frontage of new Peacocks store (20 May 2010)

However, go up or down a level and you can see right into the shop – shiny white tiled floors, escalators and stairs are all visible, with work looking well progressed ahead of the reported opening on 1 July. I’d have taken some pictures closer up, but there will still men in there working at 5:30, and I didn’t fancy being accosted for taking illicit snaps…

New Peacocks store from basement level of Monument Mall (20 May 2010)

Across town on the corner of Newgate Street and Blackett Street, work has also started on redeveloping the recently vacated Arcadia space into a new Next store, which – at 55,000 sq ft – will be one of the fashion retailer’s largest stores in Britain when it opens early in 2011.

Site of new Next store in Newcastle (16 May 2010)

...and the same view back in January

Again, there’s not a great deal to see yet, but the Topman and Topshop signs have been taken down, the site screened off, and some mysterious holes punched into the brick façade facing Newgate Street.

As far as I’m aware, there’s no further news on which retailer might replace Next’s current shop on Northumberland Street, but there’s still plenty of time for details to emerge. One sure thing is that we’re likely to be seeing Newcastle’s fashion retailers playing musical shops for some time yet, as new units are carved out and existing ones freed up.

Peacocks logo

Peacocks has submitted a planning application for new signage at the former Zavvi site in Newcastle’s Northumberland Street, confirming recent rumours that the fashion retailer was being lined up to occupy the 17,000 sq ft store.

Published today, the application (2010/0159/01/ADV) is for the “display of internally illuminated fascia sign, internally illuminated projecting sign and non illuminated banner sign to Northumberland Street elevation and black vinyl graphic to windows on Northumberland Street and Brunswick Place elevation”. An accompanying application – 2010/0160/01/DET – has been submitted for the “installation of new shopfront and replacement of air conditioning units to roof”.

Former Zavvi, Newcastle (27 Sep 2009)

Very few changes to the unit itself are envisaged – the application states that Peacocks will occupy the existing three trading levels (basement, ground and first floor), and will retain all the existing links between the store and Monument Mall. In a previous blog post, back in August, I wrote that “one of Zavvi’s strengths was having entrances/exits on all three shopping levels of Monument Mall, as well as to Northumberland Street, helping shoppers permeate throughout”. The retention of all these routes in and out of the new Peacocks store will undoubtedly provide a footfall boost to Monument Mall’s other retailers, across all of the shopping centre’s three main levels.

Looking beyond Monument Mall, and the obvious fact that a large empty unit will be brought back into use, Peacocks’ arrival can only be good news for Newcastle city centre. Though it may have had a less fashionable image in the past, today’s Peacocks is a highly popular and successful retailer – it now has over 500 UK stores, with plans to open 40 more in 2010-11, and reported like-for-like sales growth of 8% in the eight weeks up to 2 January, a significantly better figure than Next (3.2%) or M&S (1.2%). It’s newer stores – such as North East branches opened in Chester-le-Street, Seaham and Gateshead in the last year or two – are smart and attractive, with bright and interesting frontages that enliven the street scene. Peacocks’ arrival at Monument Mall can undoubtedly be seen as a vote of confidence in Newcastle city centre from a thriving retailer that has not previously had a presence here.

Existing Peacocks store in Gateshead

Above all, we can celebrate the fact that we’re getting a Peacocks instead of another branch of Barclays Bank – an idea that seems even more crazy now that the former Zavvi site’s continued viability as a large, three-storey retail unit has been so clearly demonstrated.

Thanks to TownPlanningNE at SkyscraperCity’s Newcastle City Centre Retail forum for the tip-off regarding the planning application!

Monument Mall... in Lichfield

It’s always fun to find links between my current home of Tyneside and my previous one of Staffordshire – Tamworth playing Gateshead in the Blue Square Premier, for example – but the latest link is the most bizarre yet.

You may remember that, back in August, I remarked upon the outdated website for Newcastle’s Monument Mall shopping centre, and suggested that the two-year-old mall guide – promoting long-closed-down Boots, Benetton, JJB Sports and Virgin Megastore shops – hardly conveyed a good first impression to potential visitors to the mall, and was “truly terrible PR”.

Monument Mall

Needless to say, when I revisited http://www.monumentmall.info/ today, I was not quite sure whether I would find an updated site, or the same content as before. What I certainly hadn’t expected to find was… the website for the Three Spires Shopping Centre in Lichfield (which can more usually be found at http://www.threespireslichfield.com/). The screenshot above shows the Monument Mall URL with the Three Spires website.

Both Monument Mall and Three Spires are owned by St Martins Property Investments Ltd, but it looks like someone needs to make a New Year’s Resolution to get their domain forwarding fixed… before any shoppers turn up at Monument Mall expecting to find TJ Hughes and M&S Simply Food.

UPDATE, 28 January 2010: Aha! It appears that there is a brand new Monument Mall website at http://www.newcastle-shopping.co.uk/. Even so, it would surely make sense for the old URL to point there rather than (still) to Lichfield…

Clas Ohlson's existing Croydon store

Happy New Year to you! You may recall that back in August last year (referring to 2009 as ‘last year’ is bound to take some getting used to) I blogged about the latest Scandinavian arrival to these shores, the self-styled “really useful shop” Clas Ohlson.

Back then, the retailer had already opened stores in Croydon (1,900 sqm / 20,451 sq ft) and Manchester (2,500 sqm / 26,909 sq ft), and had announced plans to open in the former Woolworths stores in Reading and Kingston-upon-Thames (each 1,900 sqm / 20,451 sq ft). In my blog at the time, I suggested that Newcastle upon Tyne would welcome a Clas Ohlson of its own, and proposed the three-storey, 17,000 sq ft former Zavvi unit facing Northumberland Street as a perfect location.

Former Zavvi, Newcastle (27 Sep 2009)

Sadly, there is no news, as yet, of Clas Ohlson coming to the North East; however, recent news has confirmed the retailer’s march northwards, as well as the suitability for Clas Ohlson of former Zavvi shops.

In September, Clas Ohlson announced that it was taking over the 1,035 sqm (11,140 sq ft) vacant Zavvi unit in Watford’s Harlequin Centre. This store opened on 10 December, reportedly to a crowd of 400 waiting shoppers.

Last month, the retailer announced two further openings. The first is a 1,650 sqm (17,760 sq ft) shop in Liverpool’s Clayton Square Shopping Centre – again a former Zavvi unit – which is expected to open in April. The second, announced only last week, is for a large 2,150 sqm (23,142 sq ft) store in The Headrow in Leeds, occupying what I understand is the last available unit of the former Allders/Lewis’s building. This historic property has been carved up and redeveloped as ‘Broad Gate’ since Allders folded in 2005, and already hosts TK Maxx, Argos and Sainsbury’s.

If nothing else, Clas Ohlson’s confident UK expansion at a time of recession – growing from no stores to seven in the space of 18 months – suggests that its assortment and brand is proving popular with British shoppers. Indeed, this appears to be confirmed by the retailer’s latest interim report^{[broken link removed]}, issued last month, which says that:

Our expansion in the UK continues with three new stores opening in the London area in November and December. We are focusing intently on contracting attractive store locations and building a strong, long-term market position for Clas Ohlson in the UK. British consumers have shown a keen interest and are positive toward our product range, prices and service level.

The report also indicates that there remains significant growth potential for Clas Ohlson in the UK, taking advantage of the better-than-usual locations and rents that are currently available on British high streets:

The recession is also improving the opportunities for contracting and establishing stores in attractive locations and at an attractive rent, primarily in the UK market… During the 2009/10 financial year, the aim is to establish 15-20 stores, of which four to eight in the UK.

All this, plus Clas Ohlson’s growing record of opening stores in the major northern cities, must surely make a Newcastle store a strong possibility in the coming year.

And what of Newcastle’s former Zavvi? Last time I walked past, just before Christmas, there was still no sign of anything happening. Also, I’ve heard nothing more, thankfully, of the nonsensical plans to turn it into a branch of Barclays Bank. However, a planning application for the “installation of new shopfronts with roller shutters to Northumberland Street and Brunswick Place elevations”, submitted by Monument Mall owner St Martins Property Group, was granted back in September.

Drawings accompanying the planning application appear to show the splitting of the building into separate ground and first floor units, though there is no indication at this stage of any potential occupiers. However, if Clas Ohlson were to come along in the meantime and offer to occupy the 17,000 sq ft unit as it is, one must surely imagine that this would be preferable to the landlords than subdivision. Failing that, the 16,000 sq ft former Woolworths in Clayton Street is always still free…

Newcastle's Zavvi store in happier times. Photograph by Mankind 2k

When I remarked a couple of weeks ago that Newcastle’s “Monument Mall would surely welcome the arrival of a strong anchor store” following the closure of Zavvi, a potential new branch of Barclays Bank was not exactly what I had envisaged.

Today’s Journal reports that “some members of Newcastle’s commercial property community have expressed dismay at the potential move”, and no wonder – the idea of the prime Northumberland Street site being lost to retail use is a crazy one.

Over the years, The Journal’s commercial property section has repeatedly cited the problem of big-name retailers who want to move to Newcastle not being able to find units of the size and quality that they require. This, indeed, has also been mentioned as the logic behind Eldon Square’s current redevelopment, where two-storey, modern units are being created. Against this backdrop, it certainly seems bizarre to take a 17,000 sq ft, three-storey unit out of the city’s retail equation.

It’s hard too to see how filling one of Monument Mall’s most prominent units with a bank will do very much to invigorate the rest of the mall. One of Zavvi’s strengths was having entrances/exits on all three shopping levels of Monument Mall, as well as to Northumberland Street, helping shoppers permeate throughout. It would seem unlikely, however, that Barclays would wish to keep so many entrances, or indeed even make public use of all three floors.

Even Northumberland Street – though in reasonably fine fettle, anchored as it is by the stalwarts of Fenwick, M&S, Bhs, Primark, Next and H&M – would surely benefit from something different to the banks, phone shops and coffee shops that have mushroomed along its length in recent years.

A separate issue is what would happen to Barclays’ existing city centre branches assuming, as The Journal notes, that any planning application to change the old Zavvi’s use from A1 (retailing) to A2 (financial services) was successful (something that is not guaranteed). While other banks have scaled back their city centre presence in recent years, Barclays still has four branches in relatively close proximity to each other – at the top end of Northumberland Street; on the corner of Percy Street and Gallowgate; in Grainger Street, next to Central Arcade; and the rebranded Woolwich opposite the old Odeon in Pilgrim Street (I don’t think I’ve missed any others). It seems highly unlikely that all of these would be retained in addition to the proposed new branch, but none are really in top-notch retail locations – perhaps part of the rationale for Barclays seeking a more central site.

If this were the case, Barclays’ move would mirror that of HSBC a few years ago, where several Newcastle city centre branches were closed and their operations consolidated into a new Grey Street flagship. The difference, though, is that HSBC’s move didn’t result in the loss of an existing retail site, given that the premises it moved into had previously housed branches of Pizza Hut and TSB.

As always, your thoughts and reactions are welcome. Most obviously, what retail name would you like to see moving into Newcastle’s old Zavvi store? Or, perhaps, are you excited at the prospect of a new shiny branch of Barclays?

Update: That’s neat! Impressed that Google has not only picked up this blog post within an hour of me publishing it, but that it shows up higher in the search results for ‘zavvi barclays newcastle’ than the Journal article that prompted it :)

Thank you to Mankind 2k for the use of his photograph of Newcastle’s old Zavvi store, which is © Copyright Mankind 2k and licensed for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence.

Clas Ohlson sign

With so many old Woolworths sites being taken over by familiar high street names and pound shops, it’s nice when the new arrival is something a little more interesting. So I was pleased to read that the Swedish “modern hardware brand” Clas Ohlson is going to be opening up in the former Woolies in Kingston upon Thames, and is also looking to occupy the old Woolworths site in Reading.

If you’ve never heard of Clas Ohlson, you can be forgiven. Established by Mr Clas Ohlson in 1918, the company has grown to over 100 stores across Sweden, Norway and Finland. However, its presence in the UK goes back only to November last year, when it opened its first British store in Croydon’s Whitgift Centre (a unit previously split between Books etc. and a standalone George store), followed by a second, in Manchester’s Arndale Centre, in April.

Clas Ohlson's existing Croydon store

In the middle of a recession, some might say that it’s a brave move for any company to make its first ventures into the UK market – particularly given the fate that has recently befallen other homeware retailers such as ILVA and The Pier. To be fair though, Clas Ohlson’s positioning seems to be more as a funkier, Scandinavian twist on Wilkinson or Robert Dyas, mixed with a Lakeland-rivalling array of useful (or merely baffling) gadgets such as plastic drain cleaners, battery testers, painted Dalecarlian horses, and scrubbing gloves for root vegetables.

Certainly, Clas Ohlson’s product range is eclectic and difficult to pigeonhole, with categories such as art supplies, clocks, fishing equipment, stationery and toys sitting alongside an extensive range of household, garden, DIY and electrical products.

Cannily, Clas Ohlson’s assortment also seems to tapping into the growing trend among credit-crunch-savvy Brits for mending rather than replacing, suggesting that:

“British people are just as interested as us in the Nordic region in fixing various things in their homes. Our broad range of products that solve small, practical problems in everyday life satisfies these interests and needs.”

With only Croydon and Manchester to choose from, I haven’t yet had the opportunity to visit either of Clas Ohlson’s UK shops. However, it looks and sounds very much like the type of store in which I could happily spend some considerable time, with lots of interesting, practical items presented within a store environment that is typically Scandinavian – clean, modern, and with a distinctive and engaging personality.

During the 2009/10 financial year, the company apparently plans to open four to eight stores in the UK, which raises the question of where those additional new stores might be. Might Newcastle be on the target list?

Clas Ohlson is certainly the type of store that would bring some more interest to Newcastle city centre, and with the completion of the Eldon Square extension next spring there will be a fair amount of existing retail space being freed up. Realistically though, the city centre doesn’t have very many units available that are big enough or in the right place.

Eldon Square’s new St Andrew’s Way, anchored by Debenhams and New Look, will offer the quality, modern space that Clas Ohlson would be looking for, but seems fairly full up already^{[broken link removed]} - mostly, it must be said, with relocations from the older parts of Eldon Square (more of that, perhaps, in a future post). The premises that New Look will be freeing up (the former WHSmith store in Sidgate) are over two levels and are about the right size, but suffer from being at the gloomiest and seemingly least visited end of Eldon Square. So, no good there.

Elsewhere in the city centre, something must surely happen eventually to the wonderful former Co-op department store building in Newgate Street, particularly now that it has become a prime location directly opposite the entrance to the new Debenhams. With five floors to fill, however, it’s unlikely to suit Clas Ohlson – or any of the other big names currently missing from Newcastle, such as Zara – unless the building gets carved up between several retailers.

The empty Co-op department store in Newcastle

The unit previously occupied by The Pier in the attractive Eldon Garden shopping centre might also be an option. Across two floors, it’s probably just about big enough, and would attract those gadget-hungry shoppers who already visit the nearby Lakeland shop. On the downside, Eldon Garden’s rather peripheral location and seemingly high turnover of stores may not offer the best environment for long term success.

Rather, I would put my money on the ideal location for Clas Ohlson being the old Zavvi store in Monument Mall. As I observed in a blog post just over a year ago, Monument Mall seems to have been struggling of late, with the unfortunate, but unavoidable, loss of Zavvi following on from the departure of Boots, Benetton and JJB Sports.

With so many closures, you can perhaps excuse the floor plan on the Monument Mall website^{[broken link removed]} for suggesting that the shopping centre still houses all these shops, along with a ’Virgin Megastore’. (Seriously, though – what on earth is going on when a shopping centre’s official website features a mall guide that is two years out of date? Truly terrible PR.)

Given this backdrop, Monument Mall would surely welcome the arrival of a strong anchor store, while the three-storey Zavvi unit would give Clas Ohlson all the space it needs along with a prominent frontage on Northumberland Street, Newcastle’s prime shopping thoroughfare.

So, Clas Ohlson – how about it?