This autumn’s shopping centre openings are going to be the last for a while - the question is, will we see many more of their ilk again?

This autumn’s shopping centre openings are going to be the last for a while - the question is, will we see many more of their ilk again?

Next month Union Square in Aberdeen opens, as does the mammoth St David’s 2 in Cardiff. But while both schemes have landed some exciting new retailer names for their respective cities, the big talking point is likely to be the number of empty stores at opening.

Aberdeen is two-thirds let by income, but as the bigger scheme it’s Cardiff which is likely to grab the headlines because with only weeks to go, it’s looking like it’s going to open with a very substantial number of unlet units.

While you could make the case that Cardiff in particular was a very big scheme given the shopping provision that already exists in the city, by and large this isn’t the fault of the developers (Hammerson in Aberdeen, CSC and Land Securities in Cardiff). In better markets they would have let better, and while last year’s rush of schemes like Bristol, Liverpool and Leicester just made it over the line before the worst of the downturn hit, this year’s developments are in the eye of the storm.

To state that schemes let better in good times than in bad though is stating the blindingly obvious. The more interesting question is what happens next. With the exception of Westfield at Stratford - which has the unique benefit of being next to he Olympic stadium - the vast majority of the significant schemes are on hold. I wonder if some of those plans will now ever see the light of day.

Retail has changed dramatically since the current generation of schemes went through the planning process. At that time online wasn’t the force it is now, and we hadn’t seen the very much needed capacity withdrawl in many sectors, notably fashion, which we have over the past year.

So if the million square foot shopping centre, or even the 500,000 square foot one, hasn’t had its day, developers are going to have to think increasingly hard about different ways in which the space is going to be filled.