Waterford North Quays

decies

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120405024#Comment_120405024

What are you Shakespeare or something ? Give it up lad if your happy enough with being given a small fraction of a project that was initially promised well congrats . If you are happy that the project won’t stop the exodus of Waterford people shopping elsewhere well a medal is on the way to you .

azimuth17

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120406983#Comment_120406983

You obviously have never read my posts. Your posts suggest you have little experience or understanding of large projects and how they develop and are executed. "They didnt do what I wanted them to do etc".

Asdfgh2020

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120406983#Comment_120406983

What data have got on the scale of the ‘exodus of waterford people shopping elsewhere’……..have you anything other than anecdotal tales from your friends/acquaintances which you then use to confirm your views and then extrapolate this on the broader population to come up with the gloomy depressing glass half empty outlook you regularly express on this forum

decies

I do apologise I guess talking to ex retailers who had a presence in Waterford city over the years is not evidence enough . There’s the usual half arsed lazy hit job again expressing negative views . Would you get over yourself honest to god . Anyway spent enough time trying to converse with the head in the sand brigade .

Valhalla90

The major retailers that have left the city don’t exist anymore and are not located in other locations. For example we lost Debenhams, Argos,Foot Locker, Topshop/Topman,Wallis. It’s not just a Waterford problem. Effort now needs to be placed into getting the missing ones such as Zara,H&M,M&S into the vacant units now.

azimuth17

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120414093#Comment_120414093

Do you really beieve that there is anyone on this thread who does not acknowledge the retail deficit we have? People are looking for solutions and dismissing comment with"talking to retailers who have left" sounds so off the cuff. What solutions do you propose?I would very much like to hear from anyone with sensible suggestions.

Bards

We should be looking to European fashion brands and not UK ones especially now in the post BREXIT environment.

Waterford needs to be a trailblazer and not trying to play catch-up with an ever decreasing market

decies

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120414172#Comment_120414172

I would very much like to hear no more from your ramblings that’s what I’d like to hear . One of these experts types that just spouts nothing and things he’s above everybody else with his expert opinions on nothing .

azimuth17

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120417434#Comment_120417434

I meant the question in all sincerity. I would b eintereste dinyour solutions.

JohnC.

I noticed the boat dock just off the Clock Tower is almost completely empty this morning. I wonder have they been told to vacate for imminent demolition.

Valhalla90

Bam said the major works will start from June onwards with the new piers in the river so I’d say the marina dock that’s near the Clock Tower will be removed very soon.

wytek

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120438040#Comment_120438040

I got it from somewho tried to get a berth there that is was due to be empty from the 1st April, it will probably be moved/out of commission and I guess might be moved across to the northquays when its finished

curmudgeonly

Quinn piling on site atm , so you can expect action on wharf reinforcement.

On the broader point, Waterford is still suffering from being a blue collar town in its shopping offering ,simple as that.

We do not have the selection of owner driver boutique's that say, New Ross had, because we don't have a client base with the expendable income! Well this has been the story for years but now it seems to be a self perpetuating story despite there being ample people with cash to splash nowadays the habits of old continue and we travel to shop.

Valhalla90

The retail issue needs urgent attention from the chamber of commerce,council, local auctioneers that let commercial units. Owners of City Square etc. The retail leak will continue until the big names are located in the city.

azimuth17

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120517797#Comment_120517797

A hang over from the glass days when people with huge earnings thought they were wage slaves and the catch cry was "nothing here boy"!.Things take a while to work out of the system.

invara

'The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear'.

Cork was here in the 1980s with Ford and Dunlop, it started to rally in the mid-90s with Government investment in higher education, roads, and airport that supported the expansion of FDI. Waterford's decline became pronounced around this time, and we started to make strategic moves to renew. It is exactly this transformation that Cork politicos are preventing in Waterford. Until the university and airport happen, it is hard to see sustained growth.

azimuth17

'The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear'.

Terrific quotation.

Emanine

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120517874#Comment_120517874

The retail issue is a global one. Retail has switched predominantly to online shopping. The 'big names' you speak of will come if they feel it's desirable enough to come here. A lot of said 'big names' are not inclined to open stores in locations new to them. Too risky in this climate.

Deiseen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120519798#Comment_120519798

Retail is not doing amazingly but there are 100s of towns and cities around Ireland & the UK that have Fantastic retail offerings and have a great vibrancy & buzz about them because of it.

Waterford is the outlier here for a city of it's size and I'd like to see people stop making excuses for it. The retail offering is awful and there's places much smaller than us offering much more and reaping the benefits.

914

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120520830#Comment_120520830

Agree with this, people say retail is dead, bricks and mortar stores are dead, yet that Penny's place always seems to be full as does JD sports, why? It's a large modern store with a very good offering.

We have had hassle attracting major retailers to the city for years due to a lack of retail space, now with the Debenhams unit, front of City square and soon to be the argos premises that lack of retail space can not be an excuse anymore.

I get things have changed since covid and retail is in a funny space, but we have to do all we can to ensure the retail offering is better, if we have the right offering then we pull from south Tipp, Kilkenny and Wexford and a minimum.

azimuth17

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120520830#Comment_120520830

See my post about the Glass above.

Valhalla90

Retail has changed but if you have choice and decent sized stores people will shop in them. Zara opened one of their largest stores ever in Blanchardstown recently so this argument that bricks and mortar stores are dead doesn’t wash. It’s not secret that H&M was going into the front of City Square but pulled out at the last minute due to a dispute over the high rent. City Square shot themselves in the foot big time there. Moving on we have the retail units available now. Something needs to give as the city’s retail offering is very poor for its size.

BBM77

I know a lot of people won’t like this but there is a serious disconnect between the reality of how people want to access city centre retail and the councils vision for the city centre. Rightly or wrongly, the reality is most people want to drive into the city centre when shopping. The council wants to turn it into a pedestrian zone. One of the reasons that city retail centre is struggling is people see coming into the city centre as a pain.

Deiseen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120522019#Comment_120522019

And Irish weather.

If only there was a large city centre car park attached to a massive shopping mall, that was being built on a brownfield site where people could have drove to and walked around shopping in warmth/comfort and would have attracted people from far and wide...

That's what was being built and it's lost now.

hardybuck

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120522019#Comment_120522019

It's a more fundamental shift than that. The city centre and its environs has to be a place where people live rather than a shopping destination.

Unfortunately too many houses have been built in the wrong locations in the last 30 years and the Councils have a job on their hands to breathe life back into the urban centre. For example, there's no real night time economy because there's nobody there after 5 in the evening. Watch the bemused tourists walking around wondering where everyone has gone.

This isn't unique to Waterford, but we need to move to a model that's closer to Barcelona than Birmingham.

It's also important to commend those involved for taking steps to build more housing on public land during a housing crisis than was previously envisaged.

azimuth17

Debenhams in Patrick Street in Cork only now being sold having been vacant same as unit in City Square. Debenhams in Limerick's O'Connell Street being turned into an apart hotel.

Bards

I still envisage that the moment Harcourt developments start their NQ build then we will see an influx of retail into the city center for first mover opportunities... Remember, there will be 10 to 15K people living within walking distance of the city center when this is built.

National and European retailers will not let this opportunity pass

Valhalla90

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120522560#Comment_120522560

The ground floor and 1st floor of the Limerick store is remaining retail as far as I know! City Square seem to be content on having vacant units. They couldn’t even make the effort to remove the Debenhams signs.

azimuth17

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120523184#Comment_120523184

Well City Square is now owned by Neville's of Wexford I believe. They seem content to leave it as is, having paid a lot of money for it, although rumours were rife some months ago of new tenants. Any new retail tenant will be demanding a real sweetheart letting deal given the times we live in and a lot of owners can't afford that hit, given the rise in interest rates and impact of a low income rental on their own financial position.

It cant be good for Neville's to have it sitting there though. Its really s##t or bust time.

Aquos76

Dunnes Stores have been doing a serious amount of work in the background with the view to them taking over the old Debenhams units in city square, they have had numerous site visits with architects, engineers and designers over a couple of days a few weeks ago. If they decide to proceed then the word is they will move from their current unit in city square to that one.