Former Woolworths, Bishop Auckland (6 Feb 2010)

When I blogged about the remaining vacant Woolies stores in the North East a few days ago, I’d failed to spot that yet another is about to be reoccupied, with Boyes – the iconic northern variety retailer – announced as the new tenant of Bishop Auckland’s former Woolworths. The store is set to open by Christmas, and will create 30 jobs.

As I noted in October, Boyes had expressed an interest in former Woolies sites in the North East as early as March last year. However, this is the first opening to come to fruition in the region, after Boyes had apparently worked “with the receivers for Woolworths… for more than a year.”

Boyes in Newton Aycliffe (12 Mar 2010)

The Bishop Auckland store will add to Boyes’ 11 existing outlets across County Durham and Teesside, including nearby sites in Newton Aycliffe and Darlington.

Boyes' existing Darlington store (12 Mar 2010)

I imagine that Boyes’ established shops in the south of the region – also including Billingham, Redcar, Middlesbrough, Stockton, Barnard Castle, Chester-le-Street and Consett – have already up mopped up some of the demand for homewares, stationery, haberdashery and other household items that would previously have been shared with those towns’ now-closed Woolies stores.

Boyes in Barnard Castle (6 Mar 2010)

Boyes, Redcar (17 Sep 2009)

There are also Boyes branches in Yarm and Guisborough, where Woolworths has never (as far as I’m aware) had a presence, and where Boyes is very much an anchor retailer within the town.

Boyes’ existing strength in the North East, coupled with the dearth of available ex-Woolies sites, suggests that Bishop Auckland may be the first and last such acquisition – exactly 100 years after Boyes first began to expand beyond its original store in Scarborough.

In Peterlee and Wallsend, the old Woolies premises are probably too small for Boyes, while Hartlepool’s two-storey unit is more than likely too big. Though the flagship Boyes in Scarborough, opened in 1881, is spread over four large floors and is essentially a department store – complete with food hall and restaurant – other shops in the chain are rarely as extensive.

Boyes' flagship store in Scarborough (16 Aug 2010)

That really leaves the north of the region – Northumberland and Tyne & Wear – where Boyes is yet to establish a presence. It came close, in 2008, to opening up in the former Kwik Save in Prudhoe’s Front Street, but ultimately lost out on that site to The Original Factory Shop.

The former Kwik Save in Prudhoe - originally targeted by Boyes (10 Apr 2010)

All the old Woolies sites in Northumberland are already taken (though Berwick’s former Kwik Save could be worth a look), but Tyneside has a couple of possibilities.

Newcastle’s Clayton Street Woolworths would be perfect as a Boyes, and would give a real boost to that end of town. Boyes’ existing presence in Middlesbrough, in the Dundas shopping centre, has shown that its model works in large urban centres as well as in small towns.

Boyes, Dundas Arcade, Middlesbrough (17 Sep 2009)

However, my vote would be for Boyes to snap up the old Woolworths store in Gateshead High Street. While work on the redevelopment of Gateshead town centre appeared to have stalled, I was understandably pessimistic about the prospects of any retailer wanting to take over the former Woolies site.

However, with the Get Carter car park finally biting the dust, and firm plans having been submitted for what will replace it, the situation looks more promising. Even in the shorter term, Tesco’s plans to open a temporary store in the old Kwik Save – directly opposite the former Woolies – while its current store is demolished could be a useful generator of footfall to the High Street.

Though it has Wilkinson and Home Bargains, Gateshead has missed having a department-type store since the Co-op closed in 2006. Boyes might be just what is needed to plug that gap.

Gateshead car park (26 Jul 2010)

In my blog post about Gateshead’s Get Carter car park this morning, I suggested that “…it seems hard to believe that the car park is finally going to disappear from the skyline after so many false starts.”

However, it really *is* going. Demolition began this morning, with quite a few bits nibbled out by the time I went along to take a look this evening.

Here, for posterity, are some shots of this quite historic day for Gateshead – the beginning of the end for an architectural icon, but the beginning, one must hope, of a retail renaissance for the town centre.

Gateshead car park (26 Jul 2010)

Gateshead car park (26 Jul 2010)

Gateshead car park (26 Jul 2010)

Gateshead car park (26 Jul 2010)

Gateshead car park (26 Jul 2010)

Gateshead car park (26 Jul 2010)

Gateshead car park (26 Jul 2010)

Gateshead car park from Windmill Hills Town Park (26 Jul 2010)

Though it’s going to be around a while longer yet, I also got a couple of shots of the current Tesco store. Looking back, from a retail history point of view, I’ve always enjoyed how the placement of the original ‘T E S C O’ lettering is still very visible on the store’s façade.

Tesco Gateshead (26 Jul 2010)

And looking forward – but seemingly appreciating the agonising slowness with which the development has progressed – I’ve always gained a chuckle from the banner proclaiming that Tesco is ‘still open’ (presumably in case anyone assumes that it’s actually been demolished already).

Tesco Gateshead (26 Jul 2010)

Only time will tell how much longer that remains the case. Once the car park is gone, and plans for the redevelopment are approved, then the Tesco store will itself have to come down, clearing the way for the new, bigger Tesco Extra that will replace it.

Hoardings promoting the new surround the old (18 Jun 2010)

Since it opened in 1969, Gateshead town centre’s Trinity Square car park has been many things to different people, but always impossible to ignore.

To some, it has been an icon of the architectural Brutalism movement; to others, an eyesore that has blighted the Tyneside skyline. It is perhaps most famous, however, as a backdrop to the 1971 film Get Carter, most notably the scene where Michael Caine’s character, Jack Carter, throws corrupt local businessman Cliff Brumby (Bryan Mosley) off the roof.

However, today – Monday 26 July – the bulldozers are finally set to move in and start razing the Get Carter car park to the ground.

Surrounding buildings have already been demolished (18 Jun 2010)

As the cranes that have sat dormant on the site for months – having already bulldozed the Trinity Square shopping centre and Indoor Market hall surrounding the car park – spring back into life, it’s appropriate both to reflect upon the history of the Get Carter car park, and to look forward to what is expected to replace it.

Doomed from the start?

Owen Luder's Dunston Rocket tower block, also in Gateshead (11 April 2010)

Trinity Square was designed in 1962 by Owen Luder – the architect responsible for Portsmouth’s now-demolished Tricorn Centre, as well as the Derwent Tower (better known as the Dunston Rocket), also in Gateshead, and itself slated for demolition. However, the development was not completed until seven years later, in 1969, when its uncompromising architectural style was already starting to fall out of favour.

Gateshead's Get Carter car park (28 May 2010)

As an architectural statement, there’s no doubt that the car park is bold, dramatic and – against a blue sky, like in the photograph above - almost beautiful. However, the biggest problem with both the car park and the surrounding shopping centre has been, in my view, their inability to fulfil the functions for which they were designed.

The structure dominates the skyline (2 Mar 2010)

For example, several floors of parking have long been closed off due to structural problems, while the space intended for a rooftop restaurant has never been occupied. When I did some research on the building a few years ago I was struck to see that there had been several proposals, in the 1960s and 70s, to use the rooftop space, but none that had come to fruition. One scheme, bizarrely, was thrown out due to a “lack of parking”.

The unused rooftop restaurant space (17 Sep 2009)

Meanwhile, in the shadow of the car park, the shopping centre itself has been a fairly miserable place in recent years – all concrete decks and grim spaces that face in on themselves, and that turn their back on the rest of the town centre. In short, it had become an unpleasant and poorly configured environment for both shoppers and retailers.

With the prospect of demolition and redevelopment being raised in the 1990s, some – including Get Carter enthusiasts and the Twentieth Century Society – countered with the view that the car park should be designated a listed building. However, it’s difficult to see what other viable purpose the structure could have been used for. It might have lent itself to redevelopment as a gallery, Tate Modern style, but in converting the Baltic Flour Mill into a Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead already had one cultural centerpiece.

Countdown to demolition

Gateshead's Get Carter car park (16 Dec 2009)

Given a structure that was unfit for its current use, difficult to convert to anything else, and – perhaps most critically – seen as a blight on a town centre that was successfully reinventing itself through new developments (such as the Baltic, the Sage Gateshead music centre, and the Gateshead Millenniun Bridge), demolition was always the most likely outcome. However, even once its fate was sealed, the demise of the structure has been a long time coming.

In August 2002, fans of Get Carter were “given the chance to visit one of Tyneside’s most famous movie locations before it is knocked down.” Five years later, in 2007, the structure was still there, but with demolition scheduled to “begin in the autumn” and redevelopment plans – by the landowner Tesco – the subject of a public roadshow around Gateshead. In September 2007, demolition was delayed, before then being set for March 2008.

Gateshead's Get Carter car park (18 Jun 2010)

In April that year – with the structure clearly still in situ – it was “opened to the public for one last time”. In September 2008, however, it was confirmed that demolition was “on hold” – but still intended to go ahead ASAP – while the planning application for the site’s redevelopment was finalised.

The car park was finally closed to the public in January 2009; pledged to “be demolished in the next few months” in August last year; but put on hold again in December pending the development of “satisfactory” plans for the redevelopment of the town centre.

The existing Tesco store will also be demolished in due course (18 Jun 2010)

Finally, last month, demolition plans for the car park were confirmed following the signing of a development agreement between Gateshead Council and Tesco, with a firm date of Monday 26 July later announced. Now, with demolition due to begin in just a few hours, it seems hard to believe that the car park is finally going to disappear from the skyline after so many false starts.

The future

Once the car park is gone, attention will turn fully to what will replace it. Spenhill, Tesco’s regeneration subsidiary, finally submitted its planning application for the site earlier this month.

The existing Tesco store, which will be demolished (18 Jun 2010)

Covering the demolished Trinity Square as well as the site of the existing Tesco store (still currently trading), the proposed development – still to be known as Trinity Square – will include a Tesco Extra as well as 45 other retail units of up to 30,000 sq ft, offices, 900 student beds, a new town square, parking, and (potentially) a hotel.

Trinity Square hoarding (18 Jun 2010)

In eastern Europe, it’s not unusual to find a large Tesco department store sitting in a prime location within a town or city centre. From a UK perspective, however, it would be easy to fear that a development led and anchored by Tesco would take the form of a retail box surrounded by a sea of car parking.

Computer-generated image of what the new Trinity Square will look like

Happily, the artist’s impressions and intended mix of uses seem very promising. On the retail side, for example, there will now be more – and larger – units than were suggested during the earlier consultation, while office uses are a logical extension of the successful commercial property developments that have taken place on Gateshead Quays. Perhaps most importantly, the student accommodation and hotel – hopefully with accompanying bars and restaurants – should bring some life after office hours to a town centre that is currently very quiet once the shops close.

The modern image of Gateshead

I’ve always held the view that this once-in-a-lifetime investment in Gateshead town centre needs to mirror the quality of the neighbouring quayside developments, rather than settling for something ordinary. If, as seems to be the case, the Tesco store is properly integrated, visually and physically, into a wider scheme that is bold and modern, then the whole development should be a real boost for Gateshead.

More than anything, the demolition of the Get Carter car park has been compelled by the promise that something better will replace it. It’s now up to Gateshead Council and Tesco to make sure they deliver on that promise, so that Gateshead residents can add Trinity Square to the growing list of local landmarks of which they are rightly proud.

Former Woolworths, Redcar (17 Sep 2009)

Stop one is High Street in Redcar, where the former Woolworths store has recently become a branch of the Yorkshire Trading Company. As always seems to be the case with old Woolies stores, it still looks and feels much like a Woolworths inside, and appears to sell a similar range of goods – homewares, gardening products, confectionery, and the like. However, when I visited there seemed to be a lot of empty shelf space left to fill, with some sections of the store not yet stocked at all. The shop’s highlight, however, is its surprising yet lovely view out to the sea from its back door – presumably something that few old Woolworths stores can boast.

Next stop is Middlesbrough, where the Woolies branch in the town’s Hillstreet Shopping Centre is now occupied by another discount variety retailer, Waremart.

Former Hillstreet Woolworths, Middlesbrough (17 Sep 2009)

At 32,500 sq ft, this is another huge store, and again it felt to me that the stock was spread rather thinly to fill the space. However, unlike the YTC shop in Redcar – which has reportedly signed a 15-year lease for the property, and has an air of permanence – Waremart has only, as yet, taken a temporary lease for the Middlesbrough site. Though the mallside fascia is pretty smart, the shop’s lack of permanence does comes across in its ‘pile it high’ instore feel. The fact that the Woolworths signs facing the service yard are still in place (below) is also a bit of a giveaway!

Old Woolworths sign at the back of Waremart in Middlesbrough (17 Sep 2009)

Niggles aside, the Woolies stores in Redcar and Middlesbrough do at least have the benefit of being reoccupied – which is more than any of the others I saw today. The old Woolworths at the third port of call – the Castlegate Shopping Centre in Stockton-on-Tees High Street – is decidely empty, with apparently little sign of anything happening. The same is true of the fourth stop, at Hartlepool’s Middleton Grange, where the two-storey former Woolies really leaves a big hole in the middle of the mall.

Former Woolworths, Stockton-on-Tees (17 Sep 2009)

Former Middleton Grange Woolworths, Hartlepool (17 Sep 2009)

The next call – at Houghton-le-Spring, near Sunderland – is a bit of a cheat, given that it’s a Woolworths passed only on the bus, without actually stopping. However, I did have a wander round Houghton-le-Spring less than a week ago, so it seems only fair to count it as Woolies number five. With its broken and boarded up first floor windows, this store is looking rather a mess - again, however, there appears to be no sign of anything imminent happening.

Former Woolworths in Houghton-le-Spring (11 Sep 2009)

The sixth and final stop is back home in Gateshead.

Former Woolworths, Gateshead town centre (17 Sep 2009)

If you were being uncharitable, you might claim that an empty shop is more in keeping with Gateshead town centre than an occupied one, given the unusually high rate of voids – a reported 60%. However, it’s difficult to judge how Gateshead is really faring given that a huge chunk of the town centre is currently being demolished as part of the Trinity Square redevelopment. There are positive signs, though – an independent ladies’ fashion shop has opened in the prominent former Leveys site opposite the bus station, while a pawnbroker is due to open in the corner unit of the former Co-op department store this coming Saturday… However, it’s difficult to see much happening with the Woolies site while the town centre is in redevelopment flux, unless Tesco chooses it for its temporary store over the smaller (but already acquired) old Kwik Save premises down the road.

So, what does all this show? Certainly, it seems to mirror the UK picture in so far as a majority of former Woolworths stores remain empty. Similarly, it also echoes the way that many of those Woolworths that have been taken over are now occupied by value variety retailers – ironically, a niche that Woolworths could and should, in different circumstances, have carved for itself.

Perhaps most importantly, it reminds us – if a reminder were needed – of just how ubiquitous Woolworths was in our high streets and shopping centres, and the gap that has been left by its departure; a gap that, as yet, has only been partially filled.

Update - 14 October 2009: It looks like the store in Stockton has now been taken over by B&M Bargains.