The collapse of several well-known retailers and weakening high street sales means developers are rethinking their plans for shopping centre development across the country.
According to the latest research from Donaldsons, there is about 34m sq ft of major shopping centre space in the UK development pipeline.
About 60% of this total is expected to be delivered by 2010, with the remainder set to become available by 2012.
Donaldsons said the majority of schemes scheduled for completion by 2009 – which include Land Securities and Capital Shopping Centres’ 750,000 sq ft St David’s 2 development in Cardiff and Centros Miller’s 800,000 sq ft Northern Quarter in Portsmouth – would be built.
However, it added that those developers opening schemes beyond 2010 would be looking very closely at retail demand before starting development.
Andrew Goodwin, partner in retail investment and development, said: “Despite recent reports, it’s not all doom and gloom for the retail sector.
“The most sought-after anchor stores ‑ Debenhams, House of Fraser and John Lewis ‑ are all trading well and will continue to acquire the right space but shopping centre developers will need to be more innovative in their approach to the tenant line-up.”
He added: “Developers do need to have an eye on what the market is doing and how it will perform in 2006. They are going to have to look at their anchors and see if they can be split into two facias.”
Retail sales last month fell to their lowest level in a decade.
Figures from the British Retail Consortium earlier this week revealed that like-for-like sales in April fell by 4.7%, the biggest drop since it began collating figures in 1995.
References: EGi News 11/05/05
