Merseyside Development Corporation is unlikely to find an anchor tenant for the former Herculaneum Dock site before the organisation winds up next year, chief executive Chris Farrow has admitted.
Two preferred developers, Berkeley-CAP and Peel Group, have already pulled out of site, known as Riverside Retail Park, near Albert Dock because they have been unable to secure anchors. Now the latest developer – yet to be announced by the MDC – is understood to be considering backing out of the18,580 sq m (200,000 sq ft) non-food retail scheme.
Farrow said that MDC was considering altering the site’s planning consent to include food retailing in a bid to attract a major occupier. He added: “The site would do well with a food retail element. It is an option we are considering.”
“What I definitely don’t want to do is make the same mistake that LDDC made on Surrey Quays phase 2 where they put up sheds next to a really good building. I would rather not complete Herculaneum than spoil a very good retail site, just so we could say that we had sorted it out,” he said.
Originally MDC could not include a food consent on the site because it would affect the vitality of the nearby Co-op, which has since closed down. Farrow said: “We would have to completely retender for a developer if we got 50,000 sq ft food retail.”
EGi News 27/02/97
