Filling vacant shops in cork

lolosaur

Is there any shops that would be of benifit to cork that could go into one of the many retail units along patrick street?

Moderne and mothercare are two currently empty prime retail slots that are empty, there is a host of others derilict along our citys crown jewel. (which seems to be a polished turd at the moment)


there needs to be investment in the city to stop it dying.
everytime i go through the city, another store has closed, with a D3 closing down clothes store opening in it's place.

The stop smoking shops seem to be the shop of choice this week but thats a flash in the pan, like the wacky hat shop, the smoothie shop, the mobile phone shop. they will all come and go.

pwurple

There are far too many retail units available at the moment across the board. Just too many built I think. Mahon point has vacant units, douglas village, douglas court, wilton shopping center, ballincollig. Plus the city center.

If we want to fill all those shops, there needs to be people to supply. Get working on increasing the population!

Dannyboy83

Lack of people is not the problem. The population is at a high in fact.
http://www.independent.ie/regionals/corkman/news/population-of-cork-tops-half-a-million-27085774.html

Lack of investment isn't the primary issue either.

The issue is
A) commercial rents and rates are too high
&
Excessive taxes mean the working population have a smaller net income than at any point in the last decade


Add to that the congestion in the city centre - I don't want to go near it, even at the weekend.

Ardennes1944

Its council rents, talking to some shopowners in the city and hearing the money they have to pay to the council is ridiculous. The council would rather get higher rates from less shops than lower the rates and potentially gain more money long term from less empty shop fronts.

Outkast_IRE

I thought the moderne premises was bought for a big name retailer, as far as i know they are currently sorting out the plans for the revamp of that entire building.

evilivor

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

I thought the moderne premises was bought for a big name retailer, as far as i know they are currently sorting out the plans for the revamp of that entire building.

Up for sale at the moment.

http://search.savills.ie/Properties/Commercial/Retail/Cork-Retail/The-Moderne,-89---90-St-Patrick-Street.aspx

draiochtanois

This post has been deleted.

Milly33

I hope they fill the shops with something different anywho. Perhaps it would be nice to see a pop up shop kinda of a place. were there are a lot of smaller shops in the one. Give people who are trying to get up and running a chance to show their stuff.

After visiting Wexford and Waterford this weekend, I have to say Cork is not that bad a town anymore. Much cleaner than both of these towns, and friendlier. And walking around at least we seem to have a few different shops here, W&W were just full of the same old shops, debanams, pennys dunnes nothing strange or out of the ordinary

ofcork

Apparently the mothercare unit is under negotiation so it maybe filled soon,of course whats really needed is consumer confidence which is not there.

Outkast_IRE

evilivor wrote: »

Up for sale at the moment.

http://search.savills.ie/Properties/Commercial/Retail/Cork-Retail/The-Moderne,-89---90-St-Patrick-Street.aspx

The examiner said it was recently sold in an article back in feb
http://www.irishexaminer.com/property/commercial/that-empty-feeling-259379.html


The Savills ad you linked to says "For Let" not for sale, so the new buyer must be looking for tenant still.

lolosaur

so it is either sold or not sold and it might be to let but it might not by the landlord/owner or it may not be. Maybe.

Sorted.

evilivor

lolosaur wrote: »

so it is either sold or not sold and it might be to let but it might not by the landlord/owner or it may not be. Maybe.

Sorted.

Apparently it has been sold - not been let.

The Irish Examiner of April 24 said:

Savills have also started marketing 89/90 Patrick Street, the former Moderne which sold to a Dublin investor earlier this year for over €4.5 million. It has 15,000 sq ft in all, with a retail area over the first two floors of approximately 9,000 sq ft, and is expected to command a rent of between €400,000 and €450,000 pa for the entire building.

lolosaur

I expect a quit smoking shop to be in there by christmas

wandatowell

Midleton caters for the vast majority of my needs, baring that Amazon.

Only have to visit Cork if I require a certain brand of clothing and thats not very often.

twowheelsonly

evilivor wrote: »

Apparently it has been sold - not been let.

The Irish Examiner of April 24 said:

Savills have also started marketing 89/90 Patrick Street, the former Moderne which sold to a Dublin investor earlier this year for over €4.5 million. It has 15,000 sq ft in all, with a retail area over the first two floors of approximately 9,000 sq ft, and is expected to command a rent of between €400,000 and €450,000 pa for the entire building.

...And therein lies the problem.

Add in Commercial Rates, Wages, Insurance and various other expenses and it's almost impossible for businesses to stay open.

An average retailer (clothing/consumer goods etc) has to triple his outgoings in takings just to break even or come close to it. i.e. if he has to pay 10k a week in rent he has to take 30k+ just to cover that alone. Add in all other costs and that shop has to be doing a massive turnover just to stay in business.
Upward only rent reviews already killed off quite a few businesses and the stubbornness of City Hall in not decreasing rates is helping to kill off plenty more.

dwiseman

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

I thought the moderne premises was bought for a big name retailer, as far as i know they are currently sorting out the plans for the revamp of that entire building.

It sold over a month ago, keys have changed hands and the deal is done.

Milly33

I hope they turn it into something nice. Was skitting at the 96fm chat about it. The name originally was suppose to be fancy like French modern but sure that wouldn't work in Cork

dwiseman

Deal was done, everything signed off keys handed over and that night there was flooding in the city centre, including the ground floor of the moderne, talk about timing!

razorblunt

I'd like to see more shops from the outskirts brought into the mix, say Mahers Sports from Maylor Street and Welchs or Prime Time offered a spot on Patrick Street. Cummins Sports from North Main street too.

If they wanted something different they could tempt all the tenants out of Merchants Quay and turn it into a night time venue with various themed bars and restaurants, similar to the Printworks in Manchester.

Highly controversial ideas, I know, but a little outside the box thinking!

evilivor

razorblunt wrote: »

I'd like to see more shops from the outskirts brought into the mix, say Mahers Sports from Maylor Street and Welchs or Prime Time offered a spot on Patrick Street. Cummins Sports from North Main street too.

Offered a spot by whom? If those companies wanted to move there I'm sure they could - same as any other business.

lolosaur

razorblunt wrote: »

I'd like to see more shops from the outskirts brought into the mix, say Mahers Sports from Maylor Street and Welchs or Prime Time offered a spot on Patrick Street. Cummins Sports from North Main street too.

If they wanted something different they could tempt all the tenants out of Merchants Quay and turn it into a night time venue with various themed bars and restaurants, similar to the Printworks in Manchester.

Highly controversial ideas, I know, but a little outside the box thinking!

that super value in merchants quay would be a class pub, if you get peckish then you could just grab ****e off the shelves. savage like.

Milly33

Oh no I wouldn't like to see Merchants key turned into a pub place. But good thinking with the late night opening. Its annoying the way most close at 6 and that's that, should have more late opening hours or like in spain take a nap around 1 - 3 or something then open again until later..

Also put more entertaining places in not pubs too many of them but a crazy golf course now that would be nice..

Malari

Milly33 wrote: »

Oh no I wouldn't like to see Merchants key turned into a pub place. But good thinking with the late night opening. Its annoying the way most close at 6 and that's that, should have more late opening hours or like in spain take a nap around 1 - 3 or something then open again until later..

Also put more entertaining places in not pubs too many of them but a crazy golf course now that would be nice..

I'd say they get a lot of lunch time trade, so it wouldn't suit either the traders or the customers who only get a short lunch break in which to visit shops.

lolosaur

as an aside, they should never ever have taken the slide out of the savoy.

razorblunt

evilivor wrote: »

Offered a spot by whom? If those companies wanted to move there I'm sure they could - same as any other business.

By offer I mean enticed by the council due to lower rents, I haven't been in MQ for years though so the shops might already be accounted for somewhere around Patrick street already, like Next.

Crux of the matter is the Council need to stimulate the growth not just seem to be happy to let the city center go the way of pound shops, phone repairs and quit smoking aids.

evilivor

razorblunt wrote: »

By offer I mean enticed by the council due to lower rents, I haven't been in MQ for years though so the shops might already be accounted for somewhere around Patrick street already, like Next.

Crux of the matter is the Council need to stimulate the growth not just seem to be happy to let the city center go the way of pound shops, phone repairs and quit smoking aids.

Enticed by the council due to lower rents to where? The City Council doesn't own Patrick's Street or Merchant's Quay.

lisasimpson

think it was the examiner recently that a nados, starbucks, are opening in Patricks st and that Mango is rumoured to be making a return. On the same article, it quote the rent in the old mothercare is going for around 400k. compared to the boots on patricks st (which I surprised is still open) the rent is 700k coz of the stupid upward only rent rule that's what is killing the city center. It would be great if the old cinema on Grand P was developed either (a) to be let into English Market or (b) into a office block. The later would bring people people into town, and have a knock on effect for the cafes, etc

pwurple

evilivor wrote: »

Enticed by the council due to lower rents to where? The City Council doesn't own Patrick's Street or Merchant's Quay.

Probably means rates, but rates are linked to rent.

SpaceTime

Bear in mind that a big chunk of Cork City vacant space is connected to the Capital Cineplex and a group of other units on Grand Parade and Patrick's Street that were bought by a developer to create a shopping centre by linking them together.

That never happened and what had been actively used small shops has been sitting idle for years.

There's a similar story around the Grand Parade Hotel area.

I'm not sure why that shopping mall with TK Maxx has so few tenants. The price per sq m must still be too high or maybe the units aren't the right size.

Opera Lane seems to have the formula right. It's pulled in big name stores, looks nice, integrated into Patrick's Street really well and it's thriving.

MQ needs a total revamp and facelift. It's lost in the 1980s and hasn't substantially changed ever.

Paul St isn't really anything other than a carpark and Tesco. Again very, very dated inside.

On the outskirts Wilton is due to be completely redeveloped. Although, i'm not sure that Douglas Village Shopping Centres very empty units indicate that there is enough demand for retail space to justify it.

evilivor

SpaceTime wrote: »

Bear in mind that a big chunk of Cork City vacant space is connected to the Capital Cineplex and a group of other units on Grand Parade and Patrick's Street that were bought by a developer to create a shopping centre by linking them together.

That never happened and what had been actively used small shops has been sitting idle for years.

There's a similar story around the Grand Parade Hotel area.

I'm not sure why that shopping mall with TK Maxx has so few tenants. The price per sq m must still be too high or maybe the units aren't the right size.

Opera Lane seems to have the formula right. It's pulled in big name stores, looks nice, integrated into Patrick's Street really well and it's thriving.

MQ needs a total revamp and facelift. It's lost in the 1980s and hasn't substantially changed ever.

Paul St isn't really anything other than a carpark and Tesco. Again very, very dated inside.

On the outskirts Wilton is due to be completely redeveloped. Although, i'm not sure that Douglas Village Shopping Centres very empty units indicate that there is enough demand for retail space to justify it.

The complicating factor is NAMA which has installed receivers to take control of companies running these places including the Cineplex development, Wilton and Douglas shopping centres halting any development plans.

The Grand Parade Hotel development is a victim of the collapse of Frinailla.

evilivor

According to Irish Examiner today plot of more than half an acre on St Patrick’s St and Grand Parade — including the Capitol Cinema site and Central Shoe Stores — goes for sale next week.

SuperDry is to move into the Moderne, Jack and Jones are to move to the former Mothercare store, and Penneys, taking over the old Jack and Jones, will expand their presence on Patrick’s Street and into Cook St.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/real-capitol-site-bought-in-cork-for-euro60m-to-sell-for-euro6m-291895.html