Hoardings, hard hats, temporary surfaces and plenty of “open for business as usual” signs are today’s street furniture in Liverpool’s main shopping pitch.
While cranes crowd the skyline above Grosvenor’s £950m Liverpool One scheme, the rest of the city centre is undergoing cosmetic surgery in order to keep up.
It does not make for a pleasant shopping experience, but you cannot make a cake without breaking eggs.
And, if Grosvenor is to be believed, its three-tier cake recipe has lots of icing.
Liverpool One will not only bring the historic heart of the city back into full use, but also elevate the city up the retail rankings.
In the 1970s, Liverpool ranked second in the country for shopping -after London’s West End – a spot that Glasgow and Birmingham now fight over.
Today, Liverpool is in 13th place.
Grosvenor’s 2.4m sq ft mixed-use scheme will change that when it opens throughout 2008 and 2009, catapulting Liverpool city centre into the top six by adding 1.4m sq ft of retail.
More than a year before the bulk of the retail opens, 73% is let – a fact that will comfort Grosvenor, which has taken a £140m financial hit to bring the scheme forward.
If enthusiasm could make up for monetary loss, then the developer would be quids-in, as there is plenty of optimism for the scheme.
Mike Burchnall, assistant executive director, highways and environment at Liverpool council, says the majority of the agencies, such as English Heritage and CABE, supported the scheme.
“There were 246 private interests in the CPO process, and no one fundamentally disagreed with the plans,” he adds.
Commentators say Grosvenor’s decision to opt for a streetscape scheme, rather than plonking a large covered mall into the retail pitch, is sensible.
The council says it took measures to ensure that not all of the city’s top retailers relocated to the scheme, damaging other retail pitches.
Grosvenor is relocating John Lewis from its former store on Church Street into Liverpool One, but the council says it “imposed a restriction” on Grosvenor offering Marks & Spencer the same opportunity.
Instead, the high street stalwart will move temporarily into John Lewis’s former store while a refurbishment of its permanent home takes place.
Once M&S is safely back in situ, John Lewis’s former store will be handed back to Grosvenor.
“We get the former John Lewis building in 2010, and may redevelop it ourselves or sell it on,” says Rod Holmes, project director at Grosvenor. “We have offers on the table, but we have an obligation to see that it is redeveloped.”
Minor shifts
However, as Ken Gunn of research body CACI points out, creating 1.4m sq ft of retail space is bound to produce losers.
“We always accepted there would be some shifts, but it won’t be major, and we will deal with it when it happens,” says Burchnall.
Land Securities must also decide how to live with Liverpool One when it decides what to do with its St John’s shopping centre towards the end of the year.
The now down-at-heel shopping centre that was built in 1969, is home to a popular market, but has had demolition balls hanging over it several times in the past.
A developer of the calibre of LandSec, which owns 700,000 sq ft of retail in central Liverpool, including the Clayton Square shopping centre opposite St John’s, will inevitably want to add value to the asset.
However, with Grosvenor commanding much of the demand for mainstream and high-end retail, putting together a scheme full of fashion retailers is not an option.
LandSec declined to comment on its plans for St John’s. It is at the consultation stage of working up development plans, and observers are curious to see the outcome.
“Land Securities has to be worried,” says Richard Lucas, partner at GVA Grimley.
“In theory, its schemes should co-exist with Grosvenor’s, but Liverpool One has got John Lewis going in at the other end of town, and that is creating critical mass. Liverpool One is regenerating the city centre, and should benefit all by bringing more people back into Liverpool.”
Retailers and landlords on Bold Street – geographically, the furthest city-centre shopping street from Grosvenor’s scheme – will also be hoping that is the case.
“It will have an effect. There will be a readjustment,” says John Barker, head of retail agency at Liverpool-based Hitchcock Wright & Partners.
“The tide could go in and out on Bold Street, but the footfall is still there, so it is good value.”
Liverpool’s recipe for retail success has been in the oven for a long time. Whether there is a cherry to go on the top of the cake will not be decided until long after it has been decorated.
