Bath has a strong high-end retail offer but always lacked the larger units demanded by the big high street chains. Ben Cooper finds out how a new centre will provide for the middle market

History, culture, an affluent catchment and a strong shopping tradition. As a retailer you can’t ask for much more from a city.

Which is why Bath, located in a well-heeled part of Somerset and with the major city of Bristol down the road, has always been home to some of the country’s top retail brands.

Although Bath’s picturesque streets make it a key destination for upmarket fashion retailers that generally take smaller units, space dedicated to the high street multiples has been lacking. Until now, that is, because a new scheme promises to change the scene.

By September next year – with the first phase opening this autumn – Bath will have another 400,000 sq ft of shopping space in the form of the Southgate development and, for the first time, a Debenhams store. Of course, you can’t just plonk a big tranche of retail in a relatively small city such as Bath without potentially upsetting the balance, especially as it is the type of retail space that has been lacking.

The real money still goes to bath. As a catchment it’s incredibly strong

Nigel Gillingham, Knight Frank

 

So is there a risk that Southgate will usher in the start of a less illustrious new chapter for Bath because of the emergence of more high street brands that will swamp the presence of quirky boutiques? Or will it simply strengthen an already prime retail offer?

There can’t be many shopping streets in the UK at the moment without a single void, but Milsom Street in Bath is one of them. Not only is there plenty of demand from retailers but the names there and elsewhere in the prestigious Milsom Quarter are of the highest quality.

Knight Frank director Nigel Gillingham says: “It’s a small city but it’s proving very, very popular with retailers. The real money still goes to Bath. As a catchment it’s incredibly strong and retailers see it as being a version of King’s Road or Marylebone High Street in the West Country.”

southgate schedule

  • Autumn 2009 – phase one
    A new bus station is due for completion and retail units including Boots and H&M will be open.
  • Spring 2010 – phase two
    A further wave of shops, cafes, restaurants and a multi-storey car park
    is expected to launch.
  • September 2010 – phase three
    By September the remaining retail units should be trading including the scheme’s department store, Debenhams.

The latest signings to the neighbourhood – Phase 8, Hobbs and Cath Kidston – join a line-up including Karen Millen, White Stuff, Hobbs, Reiss and LK Bennett, to name a few. With Milsom Street and New Bond Street in Bath housing some of the top multiple retail brands operating in the UK, as well as an array of strong independents, this part of the city takes some beating.

But one of Bath’s most valuable assets is also something of a weakness. Its historic streets are part of what makes the city so charming, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they suit retailers’ modern-day requirements. Those areas of the city that generally have units of a suitable size for the average modern high street brand are often less salubrious compared with the more upmarket Milsom Quarter. A quality divide has emerged. Gillingham says: “There is almost a tale of two cities. Bath is badly let down by having a really shabby high street offer.”

Watch this space

And this is where Southgate – a joint partnership between Multi Development UK, Aviva Investors and Bath & North East Somerset council – will make a difference. When it is complete in September 2010, there will be a further 56 stores in the city centre in a scheme that has been in the planning for more than 10 years.

One of Southgate’s key achievements will be to bring a Debenhams department store to Bath. As one of the few major cities without one of its stores, Debenhams property director Phil Monaghan says Bath hasn’t been able to offer the retailer the right kind of space until now. “Bath is one of the biggest centres in the UK in which we’re not represented, and it was an obvious place for us to go into,” he explains. “It’s an attractive looking scheme and it will improve Bath. At the moment it’s under-supplied, especially for large-space retailers.”

Apart from the 125,000 sq ft anchor store Debenhams has signed for, lettings at Southgate to date have been sluggish. Only three other retailers have signed. Boots has taken a 28,000 sq ft store, H&M has signed for a 21,000 sq ft unit and this week New Look came on board with a 20,000 sq ft store. As a precursor to opening in Southgate, H&M opened a small store in Bath last November, its first in the city.

However, the fact that H&M didn’t have a store in Bath before November and only because of Southgate will it be able to open the large-format unit that the retailer typically favours is a sign that the development will attract
a new type of retailer to the city.

It’s an attractive looking scheme and it will improve Bath. At the moment it’s under-supplied, especially for large space retailers

Phil Monaghan, Debenhams

 

“What Southgate will do is give Bath exactly what it needs, which is bigger units for more high street retailers to trade off the back of Debenhams,” says Gillingham. “There’s a lack of space and a lack of the right type of space. A lot of units are small and have been very hard for the big retailers to squeeze into.”

With only four retailers signed so far – although between them they account for well over a third of the total space – things could clearly be better lettings wise, but Southgate project manager, Multi Development’s Jon Munce, says that another 30,000 sq ft of space is under discussion.

“Interest in the scheme and Bath in general is very high,” he says. “We are talking to quite a number of retailers that are new to the city. There are some very high-end brands in Bath already and we will have some high-end fashion but in general our strategy is to go for middle to upper-middle market brands.”

Opening a scheme in such a torrid economic climate may be far from ideal, but Munce believes Southgate will be relatively insulated from the recession because Bath is “perhaps one of the best cities in the country to perform in a difficult market”.

Given the 15 per cent void rates many cities in the country are expected to suffer before long, the outlook for Bath looks relatively promising.

The city already ticks most of the boxes that any retailer, or shopper, would want. What Southgate should do – provided it can make headway with leasings – is tick the rest.

Since we last visited…

In Cardiff this autumn Land Securities and Capital Shopping Centres will open an extension to the St David’s shopping centre. The project, St David’s 2, will add more than 100 stores including Wales’s first John Lewis. The latest wave of signings has added Crew, Disney Store and H&M to the line-up. Acting for St David’s Partnership are EJ Hales, Lunson Mitchenall and Cushman & Wakefield.

In Bristol, Hammerson and Land Securities’ Cabot Circus scheme opened last September. The £500m development has brought a further 120 new stores to the city including House of Fraser and Harvey Nichols department stores.

Problems in the development sector have hit two schemes planned for Newport, South Wales. Modus has abandoned the City Spires scheme, and is reviewing the other major mixed-use scheme, Friars Walk, where construction work was planned to start last month. Modus insists that the scheme will go ahead eventually.