The collapse of the UK division of Toys R Us could be Southampton’s gain if the council gets its way and uses the site of the chain’s Southampton store as a catalyst for a wider redevelopment of the surrounding area.
Southampton City council, a major landowner in the coastal city, is the freeholder of the site on which the store sits and is planning to turn the area into a large mixed-use scheme with a substantial office element.
Toys R Us appointed insolvency specialist Moorfields Advisory as its administrator in February after poor sales left it struggling for survival. Last month Moorfields announced that having failed to find a buyer for the business, all of its 105 UK stores would close.
The 17,281 sq ft store in Southampton is located on the Western Esplanade close to Southampton Central train station and Hammerson and GIC’s 820,000 sq ft West Quay shopping centre. West Quay was given a 182,000 sq ft leisure extension recently and houses a new 10-screen cinema and Hollywood Bowl.
Mike Harris, director of growth, Southampton City Council, said: “Our key plan is for Toy R Us to be the first phase of a much larger development where the sheds and surface car parking is.
“Aviva is the long-term leaseholder on those sites and we’re already working with it to masterplan that whole area because connectivity between those sites on the different parcels of land is critical.”
He hoped the administration process to determine the future of the Toys R Us site would be resolved in the next couple of months, and added that he expected to be able to move forward with the council’s plans this year.
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