Charter Walk owner bullish about centre’s prospects
THE owner of Burnley’s Charter Walk shopping centre has expressed its confidence in being able to transform the fortunes of the 1960s-built centre.
Charter Walk has come under increasing competition in recent years, as developers have undertaken major investments at schemes in nearby towns while its owners were placed into administration.
Yet Addington Capital, which picked up the centre as part of a portfolio last year, is confident that proposed improvements could shore up its appeal to retailers.
The firm submitted a £3m planning application to redevelop the eastern part of the market square element of the centre last week, and partner Alex Wagstaff told TheBusinessDesk.com that he feels “there’s a big opportunity in Burnley to improve the shopping scene”.
“It has a loyal catchment and if we provide tenants with the quality and the type of space they require we we think that we can broaden the attraction of the development as a whole.”
Charter Walk Shopping Centre contains 365,792 sq ft of retail, 15,276 sq ft of offices, a 76,367 sq ft market hall and two multi-storey car parks with 767 spaces. Existing tenants include New Look, River Island and Wilkinson’s, while a former Woolworth’s store is now occupied by Peacocks and 99p Stores.
The centre was one of three acquired in a £145m deal from administrators Grant Thornton in November 2010, alongside the 533,657 sq ft Harvey Centre at Harlow and the 155,260 sq ft Queen’s Arcade in Cardiff.
Wagstaff joined shortly after the acquisition, having previously worked for Manchester-based developer Modus and DTZ.
“I joined to run the asset management side on all three schemes,” he said. “It was clear there were opportunities on all three sites to invest in and improve the assets.”
The company began working up a planning application for Queen’s Arcade earlier this month and is already underway with a £1m refurbishment of the Harvey Centre.
“We knew what we needed to do. Now it’s just a case of cracking on with it,” said Wagstaff.
In Burnley, its plans revolve around converting four ground floor and three upper-floor units into three double-height stores containing between 6,000-10,000 sq ft of space. An existing cafe building is also being knocked down and replaced with a glazed cafe pod with external seating areas.
“It’s a big building and it obscures the signage. We’ve got New Look and Argos in the centre but at the moment you can’t see them as the cafe blocks the view.”
Wagstaff said that the demand at the centre had held up well despite a lack of recent investment.
Moreover, although it is now competing with Hammerson’s £350m The Rock development in Bury and a £66m extension to The Mall in Blackburn, he said that void levels had remained relatively low.
“We’ve still got some good interest in it. But at the same time, you have to move with the times and provide retailers with the type of space they need.
“We know we can change it and it’s got to be better for the marketing of Burnley as a whole.”
Demand for redeveloped space is likely to uphold due to the lack of new prime space entering into the market. Property consultancy Colliers this week argued that the shopping centre pipeline is “full of hot air”, as few of the schemes on the drawing board are making it to site.
Just 1.4m sq ft of retail is currently under development in the UK, and 1m sq ft of that is at Land Securities’ Trinity Leeds scheme.
Sarah Banfield, Colliers’ associate director of research & forecasting, said: “Despite developers’ insistence that schemes are going ahead, in reality much of this floorspace is effectively still on hold until the finances can be agreed.
“Even where funding is in place, in many instances there is now the issue of expired planning consents and CPOs to overcome and the need to redesign proposals before schemes can get underway.
“Therefore, we predict that there will be little new development of any great significance for at least four or five years.”
