City's huge £1bn retail quarter set to create a new era in shopping

Jul 25 2007 by Tony McDonough, Liverpool Daily Post

Old and new shop areas will seamlessly link up. Tony McDonough reports

FOR as long as anyone in Liverpool can remember, Church Street has always been the city’s premier shopping street.

It takes its name from St Peter’s Church which was consecrated in 1704. However, in 1923 the church was demolished and replaced with a department store and ever since the street has been a destination for worshippers of shopping.

But come May next year Liverpool’s retail district will enter a whole new era when the huge Liverpool One shopping development opens to the public.

Developer Grosvenor is investing around £1bn to create not just another shopping centre, but a whole new quarter of the city centre. Spread across 42 acres, there will be 40 new buildings, six districts and more than 1.6m sq ft of retail space.

It is clear then that Church Street will no longer be the centre of Liverpool’s retail universe, but will it continue to thrive during and beyond 2008?

At present there are 40 retail units in Church Street, housing some of the most famous names in UK retailing including WH Smith, Next, Topshop, Burtons, Marks & Spencer, River Island and H&M.

The biggest tenant on the street – John Lewis – will definitely be moving out and there is still no permanent tenant lined up for its 260,000 sq ft of space.

Marks & Spencer will take up temporary residence there for two years while its Church Street outlet undergoes a multi-million pound refurbishment, but just who will occupy the site long-term is still not known.

A few doors down from John Lewis one unit is already vacated – the former Jane Norman fashion outlet. Just a few yards from that shop is jeweller H. Samuel, owned by national chain Signet.

The company has told the Daily Post that H. Samuel will be closing its Church Street store and relocating into Liverpool One. Signet’s Ernest Jones-branded jewellers in nearby Parker Street, will also be going in the same direction.

Clothes retailer H&M said it was staying put while rival Next will have the best of both worlds by keeping its frontage onto Church Street and creating another entrance at the back into Liverpool One.

At the top end of the thoroughfare there is a clutch of smaller retailers and there too, there is already one unit vacant.

The good news for Church Street comes from two of the biggest – and trendiest retailers – in the UK.

Topshop, which already has a hugely popular 11,000 sq ft store there, is staying put and is expanding to 60,000 sq ft – making it the chain’s biggest outlet outside of London. And, like Next, it will also have an entrance into Liverpool One.

Ditto Primark; it is busy converting the former Littlewoods and Open stores into a mammoth 84,000 sq ft fashion outlet, employing around 860 people.

Peter Burke, a retail specialist at Liverpool commercial property agents Mason Owen, believes Church Street will continue to be a prime location for retailers and that Liverpool One presents as much of an opportunity as it does a threat.

“I think that Church Street will always be a 100% prime location for retailers,” he said.

“The street has hardly changed in 20 years and it has been difficult for a long time for retailers to get space there, but now they will have the chance. One of the things Liverpool’s retail market has always suffered from is a lack of space but that is now going to change.”

Mr Burke acknowledged the UK retail property market was currently going through a difficult period but insisted now was as good a time as any for Liverpool One to open.

He added: “This has been planned for several years so you never know what the market is going to be like when it opens – you just have to go ahead and create the space and I do think it will work.

“It may take 12-18 months to bed down while everyone gets their bearings and it may lead to small vacuums in other parts of the city centre but I think overall it will work for the city.”

The layout of the city centre may help to ensure Liverpool One does not have a detrimental effect on other retailers.