city square

fargojones123

Just checked today at lunchtime and both Abrakebabra and O'Briens are now open with a 10% off opening offer.

iseegirls

The jewellery and watch repair shop moved out of City Square. Called Menders just across from Bishops Palace now.

Was that repair shop there since the start of City Square?

looksee

Hazy memory, but I think not quite, I seem to recall it going in after the opening. There was something there previously, been there a long time though.

sillysocks

iseegirls wrote: »

The jewellery and watch repair shop moved out of City Square. Called Menders just across from Bishops Palace now.

Was that repair shop there since the start of City Square?

Is that in the old Button & Co shop?

iseegirls

sillysocks wrote: »

Is that in the old Button & Co shop?

Yep that's it. Couldn't remember the name of it earlier this morning.

Jamie2k9

Saw the food court for first time today and surprised how busy it was at around 3.30, Starbucks was packed. Shame that the new building hasn't a store in it yet. Cafe Nero have done a nice job with the old sports savers and it was busy as well.

Why have they not opened the road to traffic yet?

914

The road still technically isn't finished. When complete, i imagine it will be only access for public transport, delivery vehicle during day time hours which will be accessed via the automatic bollards which are in the ground.

I still feel the food court is missing something. Maybe a smaller kylemore or buger king or kfc. Still seems to be a lot of room which is unused.

kilkenny31

Has to be worrying sign that no one has taken the new units yet. Has been no movement even tho they have been completed for 8-9 months now.

Road-Hog

kilkenny31 wrote: »

Has to be worrying sign that no one has taken the new units yet. Has been no movement even tho they have been completed for 8-9 months now.

Heard city square is closing down due to pressure it will experience from the north quays development. Owners feel there isn’t the footfall to sustain two major shopping centers let alone a third....its close up shop for them and cut their losses. Plus everyone shops online these days, high street shops will be a thing of the past in a few years.

Wanderer78

Road-Hog wrote:

Heard city square is closing down due to pressure it will experience from the north quays development. Owners feel there isn’t the footfall to sustain two major shopping centers let alone a third....its close up shop for them and cut their losses. Plus everyone shops online these days, high street shops will be a thing of the past in a few years.

Working in warehouses should be fun

Deiseen

Road-Hog wrote: »

kilkenny31 wrote: »

Has to be worrying sign that no one has taken the new units yet. Has been no movement even tho they have been completed for 8-9 months now.

Heard city square is closing down due to pressure it will experience from the north quays development. Owners feel there isn’t the footfall to sustain two major shopping centers let alone a third....its close up shop for them and cut their losses. Plus everyone shops online these days, high street shops will be a thing of the past in a few years.

Thats funny cause they only bought the place for a few million last year. Oh well, might as well just give up aye and lose the few million!!

Max Powers

Road-Hog wrote: »

Heard city square is closing down due to pressure it will experience from the north quays development. Owners feel there isn’t the footfall to sustain two major shopping centers let alone a third....its close up shop for them and cut their losses. Plus everyone shops online these days, high street shops will be a thing of the past in a few years.

I'd say thats gospel truth.....

914

Road-Hog wrote: »

Heard city square is closing down due to pressure it will experience from the north quays development. Owners feel there isn’t the footfall to sustain two major shopping centers let alone a third....its close up shop for them and cut their losses. Plus everyone shops online these days, high street shops will be a thing of the past in a few years.

I heard Waterford is closing down, the only thing that will be left is the north quays. A runway will be placed on the South Quays as the airport relocates to the North Quays. Also talk of city square been turned into a 24/7 cardiac care hospital just to facilitate the politics who will open the North Quays

kilkenny31

Road-Hog wrote: »

Heard city square is closing down due to pressure it will experience from the north quays development. Owners feel there isn’t the footfall to sustain two major shopping centers let alone a third....its close up shop for them and cut their losses. Plus everyone shops online these days, high street shops will be a thing of the past in a few years.

I'd say if they did say that it was with a view to preventing the development. City square won't close down. As far as I'm aware the north quays is not really a retail development, more apartments offices restaurants etc with a few retail. Similar to railway square. Michael street is the retail element.
I really hope that the aim of the north quays is to encourage a big financial services or IT company into Waterford bringing professional jobs. Which Waterford needs if it's to succeed as a city.

Waterboy2014

kilkenny31 wrote: »

I'd say if they did say that it was with a view to preventing the development. City square won't close down. As far as I'm aware the north quays is not really a retail development, more apartments offices restaurants etc with a few retail. Similar to railway square. Michael street is the retail element.
I really hope that the aim of the north quays is to encourage a big financial services or IT company into Waterford bringing professional jobs. Which Waterford needs if it's to succeed as a city.

I think a large part of North Quays is planned to be retail. Then also more retail in the new Michael St shopping centre. I think Waterford needs it to be honest. There's so little in town at the minute.

Road-Hog

There will be mass emigration also out of city and population will decline year on year.....Leitrim won’t be the county with smallest population in 20 years time.......!

fargojones123

914 wrote: »

I still feel the food court is missing something. Maybe a smaller kylemore or buger king or kfc. Still seems to be a lot of room which is unused.

A Burger King would be nice, but yeah it is missing something the huge empty space next to the stairs needs to be filled

niallo76

any truth in the fact that Zara,H&M are not going to set up in City Square after rent prices were in the region of 800,000 per annum??

keep rents down and get the shops in the town..not the opposite.
But as i said I do not know how much truth is in these rumours

brianwalshcork

800K!! Surely nowhere close to that / it’s not 2007 Grafton Street!

Jamie2k9

brianwalshcork wrote: »

800K!! Surely nowhere close to that / it’s not 2007 Grafton Street!

Well the Cafe Nero place was advertised for 100-120k per year...

Jamie2k9

There today and one of the glass box shops has a reserved sign up. Not sure how long its up.

Sully

Jamie2k9 wrote: »

There today and one of the glass box shops has a reserved sign up. Not sure how long its up.

More or less since they were completed!

JohnC.

Yeah, been there ages. Maybe something to lure other people if they think one is being taken. Except that starts to look silly after a while if it doesn't work quickly.

fargojones123

JohnC. wrote: »

Yeah, been there ages. Maybe something to lure other people if they think one is being taken. Except that starts to look silly after a while if it doesn't work quickly.

The former Next store also has a Reserved sign on it for roughly the same amount of time and nothing happening there either.

Just trying to figure out how many empty units are in City Square. There's:
The extension,
The former Next shop (Reserved)
The former Gamestop shop
The former watch repair play
The former cake shop
3 glass units (one reserved)

Deiseen

fargojones123 wrote: »

JohnC. wrote: »

Yeah, been there ages. Maybe something to lure other people if they think one is being taken. Except that starts to look silly after a while if it doesn't work quickly.

The former Next store also has a Reserved sign on it for roughly the same amount of time and nothing happening there either.

Just trying to figure out how many empty units are in City Square. There's:
The extension,
The former Next shop (Reserved)
The former Gamestop shop
The former watch repair play
The former cake shop
3 glass units (one reserved)

The problem is that we rely on a lot of UK chains for retail. At the moment, they are in such bad shape (in the UK) that they are not going to expand anytime soon. Luckily  Al-Hokair seem to be aligned with more diverse brands than the usual UK ones.

CeilingFly

fargojones123 wrote: »

The former Next store also has a Reserved sign on it for roughly the same amount of time and nothing happening there either.

The plan for that (or it was a few months ago) was for Holland and Barrett to move into that unit and the Holland and Barrett unit to be reconfigured/merged with the juice bar into a larger food use unit.

Definitely issues on the UK retail landscape is having knock on effects here as are the probable new developments as the larger retailers take a long term view.

But the biggest issue is the rents they are looking and when added to rates and service charges are simply out of sync with the market.

Max Powers

Deiseen wrote: »

The problem is that we rely on a lot of UK chains for retail. At the moment, they are in such bad shape (in the UK) that they are not going to expand anytime soon. Luckily  Al-Hokair seem to be aligned with more diverse brands than the usual UK ones.

Good point about alhokair brands, looked briefly months ago and a lot of their brands are the likes of ones you see on your holidays to Spain, Portugal, etc

road_high

Was in Waterford today and was surprised with all the work and refurbishments that have gone how little has changed- the Food Court is a pretty decent addition and things look a bit fresher. But no real heavy hitter new tenants and deletion of BK which is a step backwards. Still only shop of note for me at least is of course Debenhams.

dartboardio

^ completely agree. They took away BK and left us with the presumption of something bigger and better to come....

I only go into dunnes stores in city square and have a stroll through Debenhams.

CeilingFly

brianwalshcork wrote: »

800K!! Surely nowhere close to that / it’s not 2007 Grafton Street!

That's the estimate for the entire 17,000 sqft space if just one store took it.

That's about right.

It's the smaller units that have very high rent.