Stafford shops closing - Turning into a ghost town?

A

andy w

Well-Known Forumite
What a sorry state the Guildhall is with it being virtually empty.
You wonder what can be done. If someone like Debenhams had come in and redeveloped the bottom end of the centre then it would encourage other retailers to go in.
I suspect that the Mall style shopping centres are falling out of favour. I went to Shrewsbury last Saturday and the two shopping centres were much quieter than the High Street and had a number of empty units. I'd imagine the sky high rents and business rates have taken their toll compounding the effect of internet shopping and lower footfall.
The very nature of how the Guildhall was shoe horned into it's area stifles redevelopment as it hasn't much frontage and considering retail trends I suspect the centre's owners wouldn't spend the millions needed to make the substantive changes.
With so much empty space I would have thought the owners would bite the bullet and slash the rents to attract retailers into the centre.
 
c0tt0nt0p

c0tt0nt0p

Well-Known Forumite
andy w said:
What a sorry state the Guildhall is with it being virtually empty.
You wonder what can be done. If someone like Debenhams had come in and redeveloped the bottom end of the centre then it would encourage other retailers to go in.
I suspect that the Mall style shopping centres are falling out of favour. I went to Shrewsbury last Saturday and the two shopping centres were much quieter than the High Street and had a number of empty units. I'd imagine the sky high rents and business rates have taken their toll compounding the effect of internet shopping and lower footfall.
The very nature of how the Guildhall was shoe horned into it's area stifles redevelopment as it hasn't much frontage and considering retail trends I suspect the centre's owners wouldn't spend the millions needed to make the substantive changes.
With so much empty space I would have thought the owners would bite the bullet and slash the rents to attract retailers into the centre.
Click to expand...
That reminds me I must tweet them again to ask when the refurbishments at the Guildhall is starting....
 
HopesDad

HopesDad

Don't feed the troll
andy w said:
What a sorry state the Guildhall is with it being virtually empty.
You wonder what can be done. If someone like Debenhams had come in and redeveloped the bottom end of the centre then it would encourage other retailers to go in.
I suspect that the Mall style shopping centres are falling out of favour. I went to Shrewsbury last Saturday and the two shopping centres were much quieter than the High Street and had a number of empty units. I'd imagine the sky high rents and business rates have taken their toll compounding the effect of internet shopping and lower footfall.
The very nature of how the Guildhall was shoe horned into it's area stifles redevelopment as it hasn't much frontage and considering retail trends I suspect the centre's owners wouldn't spend the millions needed to make the substantive changes.
With so much empty space I would have thought the owners would bite the bullet and slash the rents to attract retailers into the centre.
Click to expand...

The owners of the building are not that interested in whether there are any tenants or not. They own a major property right in the Centre of the county town, and the increasing value of that property is their investment. Any rental income that they receive along the way is a bonus but peanuts in comparison . They have no great interest in redeveloping the Centre to attract new tenants because that would cost them a lot more than the rental income generated. Similarly they are not worried what the public think, whether they go shopping in there or not, as footfall for the shops does not increase income for the property owners.

When Stafford council sold its flourishing market, and the ground it stood on, many years ago, it was to make a quick buck to balance the books at the time, rather than provide and facility for the townspeople.

Rather than lessons being learnt, history has recently repeated itself with the sale of the town's main car park to make a few quid to balance this year's books. Similarly the riverside Centre.

And in a year or two's time history will repeat itself a third time when the council decide that it's not worth keeping the shire hall empty when they can flog that off too, to balance next year's books.

Basically, you vote for a Tory council, you get Tory values.
 
G

Gareth

Well-Known Forumite
HopesDad said:
The owners of the building are not that interested in whether there are any tenants or not. They own a major property right in the Centre of the county town, and the increasing value of that property is their investment. Any rental income that they receive along the way is a bonus but peanuts in comparison . They have no great interest in redeveloping the Centre to attract new tenants because that would cost them a lot more than the rental income generated. Similarly they are not worried what the public think, whether they go shopping in there or not, as footfall for the shops does not increase income for the property owners.

When Stafford council sold its flourishing market, and the ground it stood on, many years ago, it was to make a quick buck to balance the books at the time, rather than provide and facility for the townspeople.

Rather than lessons being learnt, history has recently repeated itself with the sale of the town's main car park to make a few quid to balance this year's books. Similarly the riverside Centre.

And in a year or two's time history will repeat itself a third time when the council decide that it's not worth keeping the shire hall empty when they can flog that off too, to balance next year's books.

Basically, you vote for a Tory council, you get Tory values.
Click to expand...

Bollox!!!!!
 
HopesDad

HopesDad

Don't feed the troll
andy w said:
What a sorry state the Guildhall is with it being virtually empty.
You wonder what can be done. If someone like Debenhams had come in and redeveloped the bottom end of the centre then it would encourage other retailers to go in.
I suspect that the Mall style shopping centres are falling out of favour. I went to Shrewsbury last Saturday and the two shopping centres were much quieter than the High Street and had a number of empty units. I'd imagine the sky high rents and business rates have taken their toll compounding the effect of internet shopping and lower footfall.
The very nature of how the Guildhall was shoe horned into it's area stifles redevelopment as it hasn't much frontage and considering retail trends I suspect the centre's owners wouldn't spend the millions needed to make the substantive changes.
With so much empty space I would have thought the owners would bite the bullet and slash the rents to attract retailers into the centre.
Click to expand...
Any hope of somebody like Debenhams coming in went out of the window when the back end of the Centre, upstairs and downstairs, was let out to the gym. That whole end would have been the only part of the Centre that would have interested a large retailer, and now it is gone.

As usual, no forward thinking, no development plan, no strategy, just grabbing the first opportunity of making a quick buck without thinking through the consequences.
 
G

Gareth

Well-Known Forumite
First off don't call me a council puppet...i work ard for a living.

But again your facts are inaccurate, not sure why people think the market was thriving at the time of the guildhall development.

While it covered a larger area the stall vacancy was slightly worse than now. I should know I conducted a feasibility study for a private third party..a report a still have.

The development was also unanimously backed by stalled holders at the time.

The towns market was starting to whither even prior to the supermarkets were springing up. The market down sizing was the right choice just not the location.
 
Feed The Goat

Feed The Goat

Well-Known Forumite
They own a major property right in the Centre of the county town, and the increasing value of that property is their investment

INCORRECT. Property values in Stafford town centre are decreasing.
 
B

bunique

Well-Known Forumite
I actually agree with @HopesDad about the way the Guildhall appears to be managed. There doesn't appear to have been much creative thought put in to filling the mass of empty units
 
G

Gareth

Well-Known Forumite
bunique said:
I actually agree with @HopesDad about the way the Guildhall appears to be managed. There doesn't appear to have been much creative thought put in to filling the mass of empty units
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That is the one thing I would agree with. The management is non existent and utterly clueless.

No movement at all on these supposed enhancements, cannot organise contracts for current tennents and where are all these new retailers that the manager repeats every 6 months are coming.

Utterly useless, it would be better if the place was sold to someone who would make a fist of out and with an idea.
 
proactive

proactive

Enjoying a drop of red.
Town seemed to be awash with chuggers yesterday. Got approached by one in Market Square and then by three, for different companies between MuckDs and St. Chad's.
 
E

EasMid

Well-Known Forumite
Anybody else get pissed of at the cheeky bastard chuggers standing in the shelter of Smiths unused doorway. They don't even stop you they just shout across the road for you to go to them. Cheeky bastards!! I had to resort to a "feck off" on the third time I passed them last Saturday.
 
Noah

Noah

Well-Known Forumite
proactive said:
Town seemed to be awash with chuggers yesterday. Got approached by one in Market Square and then by three, for different companies between MuckDs and St. Chad's.
Click to expand...

Yes, at one time it looked as though there were more chuggers than shoppers - then there were the SkyTv and car salesmen as well.
 
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