Opposition to competing schemes is nothing new in the commercial property world. But the scale of opposition coming from Belfast city centre to an out-of-town retail scheme is particularly fierce. In an open letter to deputy prime minister John Prescott, in a full-page advertisement in the Belfast Telegraph in March, opinions flowed freely.
Developers, two chambers of commerce, retailers and politicians made no bones about how they felt about owner Westfield’sproposed extension to its Sprucefield Retail Park near Lisburn – just 12 miles south of Belfast city centre. They wanted Prescott to reject it. And the main reason why? The 460,000 sq ft extension would include a planned 220,000 sq ft John Lewis anchor store.
The letter was signed by 53 firms and individuals, including AM Developments, Belfast Chamber of Commerce, and 40 councillors. They declared that allowing the expansion would be nothing short of a “travesty”.
“Secretary of State, please do not allow this application to damage the balanced regeneration that has taken place in Lisburn, Belfast and elsewhere,” pleaded the letter. “The Sprucefield application has been clouded by the interest of the John Lewis Partnership in opening a department store there.”
But what is the real threat? The fact that Sprucefield wants to expand – or the fact that John Lewis will anchor the expansion? This will be the first time the store opens anywhere in Ireland, heralding the province’s arrival on the UK’s retail stage.
Certainly, the motives of several signatories to the letter are questionable. AM Developments is behind Belfast’s £300m Victoria Square retail scheme, which has as its anchor fellow objector House of Fraser. Another signatory, William Ewart Properties, is developing the £120m, 200,000 sq ft Royal Avenue retail scheme in the city. Lisburn Chamber of Commerce and the town’s retail association signed the letter because they will have the massive development on their doorstep.
But, in a collective voice, the signatories say their aim is to protect Belfast from unfair competition. They say they are not opposed to John Lewis coming to Northern Ireland. In fact, they welcome it. They even admit Sprucefield is “a good location for certain types of retail”. What they are against is Westfield having the 460,000 sq ft of unrestricted open A1 space it has applied for. As well as John Lewis, there is room for another 29 shops.
In the context of Belfast city centre’s retail offer, the opposition is understandable. Until the Castlecourt shopping centre opened in 1990, the city had few notable retail names. Since then, there has been little significant development.
And then there is the city of Lisburn. Sprucefield – which opened in 2003 – is just outside it. Operators of the town’s main shopping centre, the Bow Street Mall, have also signed the open letter.
The problem – or perhaps the advantage – of Sprucefield is its location. Sprucefield is a designated regional retail centre. The site is also Northern Ireland’s premier location at the junction of the M1/A1 interchange – two of the province’s main arteries. It is only 15 minutes drive from Belfast and has a catchment of around half a million people.
A 232,000 sq ft retail park, anchored by B&Q and Sainsbury’s, and including a large Marks & Spencer, is already trading successfully. It is not surprising that John Lewis says that Sprucefield “is the only site in Northern Ireland that we feel we can sustain. It’s Sprucefield or nothing”.
This attitude has incensed objectors, who believe that John Lewis should be in Belfast city centre. They point out that there are schemes planned or being built that could accommodate the store. William Ewart Properties’ scheme is one, although some say this could be too small for a large department store. Another, ironically, is Westfield’s 350,000 sq ft Castlecourt shopping centre, where a 450,000 sq ft extension is planned.
That extension is still going through planning, but has been given a major boost by being central to the government’s plans to regenerate the north-west quarter of the city. But neither scheme will be ready before 2008.
Here lies one of the problems. John Lewis has its own expansion schedule that it wants completed by 2006. Failing that, it would only be able to look at Northern Ireland after 2012. Hence the added attraction of Sprucefield, which would see the retailer take occupation as early as next year.
One and only chance to bag John Lewis?
Belfast agents’ frustration is summed up by Michael Pierce, a partner at DTZ McCombe Pierce. “Why should Westfield be allowed to have an open A1 retail scheme there? We would all build there if we could, but it’s detrimental to Belfast.” Agents believe that it is only Westfield and John Lewis which want the scheme.
Others say John Lewis is pressuring the province by saying at the end of last year that it needed a decision as soon as possible or it would pull out of the deal. Martyn Chase, chairman at Donaldsons – who was involved in getting Victoria Square started in Belfast and is this year’s chairperson of the British Council of Shopping Centres annual conference in Belfast in October – is not impressed.
He is blunt. “John Lewis going to Sprucefield would have an adverse affect on the city centre because it would provide an alternative retail destination. The extension would,effectively, turn Sprucefield into a town. If John Lewis doesn’t go to Belfast city centre, then it shouldn’t go to Northern Ireland at all.”
Meanwhile, John Sargent, managing director of AM Developments, says the preference must be to reinstate Belfast as the retail centre of excellence in Northern Ireland. “We do not want to dilute the retail offer of Belfast by engaging in the 1990s style of out-of-town retailing that has fallen out of favour in other parts of the UK.”
Developer Westfield, which inherited the site when it bought out the Chelsfield group late last year, is sympathetic to criticisms. But, says Westfield project developer Peter Miller: “The oppostion should be reassured by the size of the Sprucefield scheme. We are talking about a scheme of half a million square feet. Belfast city centre is 1.2m sq ft and, with Victoria Square and Castlecourt, it will be more than 2.6m sq ft. That makes for a big centre. There’s no way Sprucefield will be a challenge to Belfast.”
Miller points to other local examples where retail developments have been allowed to expand, such as Boucher Road retail park on the outskirts of Belfast, which has retailers such as Next, and schemes along Lisburn Road, a major thoroughfare going south from the city centre.
“Lisburn Road is probably one of the UK’s most successful radial route retail points. Instead of worrying about Sprucefield, the city council is creating a real problem for itself by allowing these to go ahead,” he says.
Plus, several factory outlets are planned (see panel, p79). Just before Northern Ireland’s first factory outlet, Junction One, opened in May last year, Belfast City Centre Management Company expressed concern about the effect it would have. A year on, most Belfast commentators agree it has had little or no impact.
Westfield has also carried out a study on the likely effects of Sprucefield’s extension on Belfast. “The impact would be a 10% deflection on existing city-centre trade at the margin, where it is considered not harmful to city-centre business,” says Miller. Referring to Lisburn town centre, he says Westfield “will do all it can to stop retailers leaving the town centre to go to Sprucefield” — although he accepts that retailers will go where they believe trading will be best.
For now, however, there is stalemate. The Department of Environment for Northern Ireland, which is looking at the application, told EG: “We are not in a position where we can announce a decision on Sprucefield.”
Until then, more letters could be written, and more views could be given.
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In 2003, two developers went head to head to open Northern Ireland’s first factory outlet. Bullish comments were openly expressed, and the names of top retailers in the running to occupy them thrown around like confetti. However, there was only one winner – John Drummond, managing director of the Guinea Group. Drummond opened the 200,000 sq ft, Junction One outlet, only 20 minutes driving time from Belfast, in May 2004. He is now planning a 100,000 sq ft extension to the site. “We will have had more than 2.5m visitors by the end of May. We are very happy about how it is going,” says Drummond. The loser was John Farmer, chief executive of Gilford Mill Ltd. Farmer now admits that his scheme, in the small town of Gilford, 40 miles south of Belfast and near the Irish Republic border, “had a lot of charm, but limited access”. Farmer’s dream of converting the 19th century Gilford Mill building into a 100,000 sq ft factory outlet that would have drawn top high street retailers was frustrated by the 21st century need for good transport connections. All this is now history. Farmer is bouncing back with the 205,000 sq ft The Outlet at Bridgewater Park in Banbridge, set to open in late 2006. However, after all the fanfare and promises around Gilford Mill, cynics are questioning whether anything will actually materialise. Farmer, unsurprisingly, is in no doubt that it will. And he gives several key reasons why. First, positioning. The site is more prominent than Gilford, being just off the A1 – one of the province’s main arterial routes. Second, the scheme does not stand alone,but is part of a 1m sq ft site, owned by local developer Moy More, which already has full planning permission for 430,000 sq ft ofretail warehousing, a 565,000 sq ft business park, a 60-bedroom hotel, a petrol station and a drive-through restaurant. And third, the scheme has planning permission. Farmer is keen to express that GML Estates, the company behind The Outlet, has detailed planning permission to build the factory outlet. “That was granted in January,” says Farmer. “And there’s no judicial challenge, so we are in the clear.” No names are yet being released, although Farmer says he has 40% of the scheme “signed legally binding, with letters of intent”. However, cynics remain dubious, especially as history seems to be repeating itself. There is another 166,710 sq ft factory outlet being planned by developer ING Real Estate at Ballymac in Dundalk. Dundalk is just 48 miles from Belfast, and on the other side of the border from The Outlet. Farmer is not shaken, saying his scheme will be “undoubtedly, the premier site in Ireland”. It will be the market that judges whether a scheme will work when it is open and trading. For now, the market is watching. |
