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Marks & Spencers renews bid for Waterford

Sully

Ill get the full article later, but its in today's News & Star. M&S are planning on opening two new units in Waterford - one in the City Center (a food store) and one in the ORR by the Airport. A shuttle bus will connect the two. M&S are committed to opening here and see the potential according to the paper.

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gaulsmillls

The city centre is too small and look at the hoops KRM had to jump through to get planning and after all the complaints now it wont be built. i think some people are afraid to change, if i was a developer i would not come too waterford for there is too much red tape. i would love too see the town grow have a place that people for all over our lovely country to come and shop as for the shopping centre in south kilkenny put a walk bridge over and that way you would encourage the shoppers there over to the town as well they could leave there cars behind as for the ORR a shuttle bus is a great idea.

Psychedelic

Fricatus and Merlante have hit the nail on the head so I won't say too much on this.

I thought we are supposed to be the untaken city? M&S and Edward Holdings need to be told that Waterford City is not going to be blackmailed into damaging its already 'dying' city centre for the sake of their British products. If Grafton Street in Dublin and Merchant's Quay in Cork city centres are good enough, then why not in the Newgate Centre in Waterford City when it's built?

Every second thread here and on other Waterford wesites is about the city centre dying yet people are in favour of a development which will make the situation even worse.

mike65

Urbs Intacta?

How about Urbs paupertās?

fricatus

mike65 wrote: »

Urbs Intacta?

How about Urbs paupertās?

Or urbs mortua...

The benefits of a classical education, eh Mike?

Boskowski

Whats with all this advocating for a stronger city center? The city center is rubbish IMHO. Overall it looks like an unsightly dump, it has mostly either cheap chains or small overpriced shops, the driving & parking situation is catastrophic, I avoid it like the plague. I can't think of any measure that's going to bring me back there. Refusing M&S is certainly not going to do it.

mayordenis

realcam wrote: »

Whats with all this advocating for a stronger city center? The city center is rubbish IMHO. Overall it looks like an unsightly dump, it has mostly either cheap chains or small overpriced shops, the driving & parking situation is catastrophic, I avoid it like the plague. I can't think of any measure that's going to bring me back there. Refusing M&S is certainly not going to do it.

That sounds about right to me.

mike65

fricatus wrote: »

Or urbs mortua...

The benefits of a classical education, eh Mike?

If only! :pac:

AdMMM

realcam wrote: »

Whats with all this advocating for a stronger city center? The city center is rubbish IMHO. Overall it looks like an unsightly dump, it has mostly either cheap chains or small overpriced shops, the driving & parking situation is catastrophic, I avoid it like the plague. I can't think of any measure that's going to bring me back there. Refusing M&S is certainly not going to do it.

Are you saying we should just ignore the City Centre then and try build a few self-sufficient urban communities on the outskirts of the City?

fricatus

realcam wrote: »

Whats with all this advocating for a stronger city center? The city center is rubbish IMHO. Overall it looks like an unsightly dump, it has mostly either cheap chains or small overpriced shops, the driving & parking situation is catastrophic, I avoid it like the plague. I can't think of any measure that's going to bring me back there. Refusing M&S is certainly not going to do it.

And do you think it's going to get any better if we allow new shopping developments to migrate to the suburbs?

foxylad

realcam wrote: »

Whats with all this advocating for a stronger city center? The city center is rubbish IMHO. Overall it looks like an unsightly dump, it has mostly either cheap chains or small overpriced shops, the driving & parking situation is catastrophic, I avoid it like the plague. I can't think of any measure that's going to bring me back there. Refusing M&S is certainly not going to do it.

re- unsightly dump

waterfrod Chamber of Commerce Retail comittee and mayors offive are launching "Waterford in Bloom" around 2-25 June - where nearly 300 planted window boxes will be installed around the city centre - giving the city a colourful look for the summer

id say 50% of shops take great care in their appearance ---- the vacent ones let us down badly as a city ---- but seemingly city coulcil are powerless to do anything

Parking --- carparks are running at 50% capacity or less ---- so parking is not a problem

as for price ---Georges Court are running a 2 hours free parking promotion but less than 2% take up -- so price dosent seem to be a issue

traffic --- with the impending by pass in september - traffic in city centre should be reduced by 30% -

merlante

foxylad wrote: »

re- unsightly dump
waterfrod Chamber of Commerce Retail comittee and mayors offive are launching "Waterford in Bloom" around 2-25 June - where nearly 300 planted window boxes will be installed around the city centre - giving the city a colourful look for the summer

id say 50% of shops take great care in their appearance ---- the vacent ones let us down badly as a city ---- but seemingly city coulcil are powerless to do anything

Parking --- carparks are running at 50% capacity or less ---- so parking is not a problem
as for price ---Georges Court are running a 2 hours free parking promotion but less than 2% take up -- so price dosent seem to be a issue

traffic --- with the impending by pass in september - traffic in city centre should be reduced by 30% -

I wouldn't be bothered addressing this attitude if I were you. Waterford city centre is fine but we have plenty of people who love to run it down. The contrast between old and new, done up and decayed make it a more interesting city than most. They can send the flower boxes to Kilkenny imho, and to other ex-urban centres surviving on tourism. The biggest blight on the landscape is the endless surface carpark on the quay, and then we hear complaints about parking. Anyone who thinks parking or traffic is bad in Waterford has not done much travelling, even within Ireland. It is anathema to the Waterford mindset to take pride in what we have.

JohnC.

foxylad wrote: »

Georges Court are running a 2 hours free parking promotion but less than 2% take up

Did they tell anyone about this? Where is this parking?

WhatsTheStorey

merlante wrote: »

I wouldn't be bothered addressing this attitude if I were you. Waterford city centre is fine but we have plenty of people who love to run it down. The contrast between old and new, done up and decayed make it a more interesting city than most. They can send the flower boxes to Kilkenny imho, and to other ex-urban centres surviving on tourism. The biggest blight on the landscape is the endless surface carpark on the quay, and then we hear complaints about parking. Anyone who thinks parking or traffic is bad in Waterford has not done much travelling, even within Ireland. It is anathema to the Waterford mindset to take pride in what we have.

Well stated!

However, we need more collaboration between our City Council and the Retailers on the ground. I appreciate that the Chamber is trying to introduce innovative ideas to promote our city but the civil service wheels move very slowly! I think that is why the other retail group set up independent to the Chamber because they are frustrated with progress. Add to that our serial objector and you can see why we are not making enough progress.

foxylad

Kahless wrote: »

Did they tell anyone about this? Where is this parking?

it was in papers anvertised in local press and in Georges Court

cark park on the Quay by clock tower

foxylad

WhatsTheStorey wrote: »

Well stated!

However, we need more collaboration between our City Council and the Retailers on the ground. I appreciate that the Chamber is trying to introduce innovative ideas to promote our city but the civil service wheels move very slowly! I think that is why the other retail group set up independent to the Chamber because they are frustrated with progress. Add to that our serial objector and you can see why we are not making enough progress.

i deal with City Council quite a bit ---
i bitch to them a lot

there is too much red tape --- not enough action

i work free of charge for festivals, several comittees and Chamber ---

it like banging ur head against a wall trying to get stuff done

im trying to organise The Sawdoctors for city centre

Food Festival for John Roberts Sq

if anyone can help - please pvt

WhatsTheStorey

foxylad wrote: »

i deal with City Council quite a bit ---
i bitch to them a lot

there is too much red tape --- not enough action

i work free of charge for festivals, several comittees and Chamber ---

it like banging ur head against a wall trying to get stuff done

im trying to organise The Sawdoctors for city centre

Food Festival for John Roberts Sq

if anyone can help - please pvt

Are we allowed to name and shame Council officials who due to politics or general civil service inefficiency are restricting positive changes in our City??

gscully

WhatsTheStorey wrote: »

Are we allowed to name and shame Council officials who due to politics or general civil service inefficiency are restricting positive changes in our City??

You mean Brendan McCann is not doing this single-handedly?

WhatsTheStorey

gscully wrote: »

You mean Brendan McCann is not doing this single-handedly?

He has certainly contributed. However, I wonder how many narrow minded civil servants hold things up! Think about it, you don't relate vision, creativity and broad thinking to anyone who decides to join the civil service.

gscully

It seems the Clonmel store is opening in a couple of weeks (Jun 24th?), so we'll quickly find out just how popular they are...

merlante

In one of the Sunday papers I read that M&S are regretting expanding in some of the places they did during the boom, saying that they got carried away setting up in some sub-par locations. They did say that they are still looking to open stores though. A store in Tallaght was used as one example of somewhere they shouldn't have gone given the demographics and the other shops in the centre they set up in.

A friend of mine used to work for them in management in Dublin and said they never really looked outside the pale and preferred to expand in Dublin rather than around the country. That was about 5 years ago and obviously they changed, but I think there is some reality dawning on these kind of chains that outside of the boom, big stores can only really survive in a handful of locations around the country. The days of huge shopping centres opening in small towns are over forever.

AdMMM

WhatsTheStorey wrote: »

He has certainly contributed. However, I wonder how many narrow minded civil servants hold things up! Think about it, you don't relate vision, creativity and broad thinking to anyone who decides to join the civil service.

I'm pretty sure those "narrow-minded civil servants" are only following processes which have been established after prior consultation with outside agencies, the type of agencies which claim to have this vision and innovation.

Boskowski

AdMMM wrote: »

Are you saying we should just ignore the City Centre then and try build a few self-sufficient urban communities on the outskirts of the City?

fricatus wrote: »

And do you think it's going to get any better if we allow new shopping developments to migrate to the suburbs?

No, I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that for whatever reason the retailers in the city center and the council have failed to turn the city center into something attractive. Not for strolling, not for shopping and not for having a leisurely coffee or such. Now they try to protect whatever they don't have by blocking competition in the center itself and in the outskirts it seems. I don't like the city center, full-stop. Look at Kilkenny town for instance. The parking & traffic situation is as bad as Waterford's if not worse. Yet I find Kilkenny town center much more appealing in terms of shopping, strolling, spending time in general. It's cosier, it has character. Waterford city center is cold and unsightly. Shopping isn't great either.

mike65

Blame the fools who designed Lenin Square.

merlante

realcam wrote: »

No, I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that for whatever reason the retailers in the city center and the council have failed to turn the city center into something attractive. Not for strolling, not for shopping and not for having a leisurely coffee or such. Now they try to protect whatever they don't have by blocking competition in the center itself and in the outskirts it seems. I don't like the city center, full-stop. Look at Kilkenny town for instance. The parking & traffic situation is as bad as Waterford's if not worse. Yet I find Kilkenny town center much more appealing in terms of shopping, strolling, spending time in general. It's cosier, it has character. Waterford city center is cold and unsightly. Shopping isn't great either.

Kilkenny is a small place that is choked with traffic. Don't personally know why people would prefer it to Waterford where you can have a good walk around the place without encountering too much traffic.

wellbutty

realcam wrote: »

No, I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that for whatever reason the retailers in the city center and the council have failed to turn the city center into something attractive. Not for strolling, not for shopping and not for having a leisurely coffee or such. Now they try to protect whatever they don't have by blocking competition in the center itself and in the outskirts it seems. I don't like the city center, full-stop. Look at Kilkenny town for instance. The parking & traffic situation is as bad as Waterford's if not worse. Yet I find Kilkenny town center much more appealing in terms of shopping, strolling, spending time in general. It's cosier, it has character. Waterford city center is cold and unsightly. Shopping isn't great either.

Some very good points there.

Personally I think the city needs to be attractive in order to attract footfall and as a result, new business. This works beautifully for Kilkenny where shopping centres blend into the city streets (like Georges Court) unlike our Broad Street Centre and City Square. I dont think too many people will go to Clonmel just for M&S, they'll make a day out of it if they think it's a nice place to visit.

The questions I'd be asking of our city (which has more going for it than most towns and cities) are:

1) Why cant these two shopping centres be given a facelift to bring them into the 21st century?
2) Why cant the North Quays factories be demolished?
3) How can John's River be left the way it is?
4) Why are we destroying views of the magnificent River Suir by having a 4-lane road and carparking along it's length? In any other forward-thinking European city, this would be a tree-lined boulevard
5) How can the council do such beautiful work on restoring our city walls and towers back to their glory days and then allow the Watch Tower to be a late night toilet, the French Tower to face onto Browne's Lane and the Beach Tower to be in the middle of warzone Jenkins Lane?

But there's other factors to consider. Is our city's potential actually limited by the main arteries that run through it? Is the unusual migration of thousands of workers across the same little bridge crippling us? Is our city centre too spread out for the city's size (from The Bridge to Railway Square)? It may seem like a crazy idea but imagine if the existing bridge was closed to traffic and everything had to use the new bypass bridge????

I don't think we need visionaries on our council/chamber, we need people with b*lls and people with their eyes just HALF open!

PS This is not a case of putting down our own, I have lots of European friends and relations over here every year and these are their observations as well. They glow when talking about our county.

mike65

4) Why are we destroying views of the magnificent River Suir by having a 4-lane road and carparking along it's length? In any other forward-thinking European city, this would be a tree-lined boulevard

Its the N25! There was never any chance of some boulevard type design/use until the by-pass got built. When that opens it'll be interesting to see if there are any ideas put forward for 'encouraging' traffic up Summerhill, narrowing the quay to say 2 driving lanes and 1 lane for commerical deliveries before 10 am.

It may seem like a crazy idea but imagine if the existing bridge was closed to traffic and everything had to use the new bypass bridge????

Yes it is crazy, you are in danger of sounding like one of those crazy town planers from the 60s that ripped UK cities to pieces in the name of progress. While you are advocating something non destructive its still not taking account of peoples needs. Re-directing all traffic out the cork road and around the ORR and over the new bridge (tolled remember!) would be madness.

wellbutty

mike65 wrote: »

Yes it is crazy, you are in danger of sounding like one of those crazy town planers from the 60s that ripped UK cities to pieces in the name of progress. While you are advocating something non destructive its still not taking account of peoples needs. Re-directing all traffic out the cork road and around the ORR and over the new bridge (tolled remember!) would be madness.

Mike I didnt elaborate on how it would work! I didnt suggest we would all go out the cork road, it would have to be done in conjunction with a new road with onramp and offramp to the bypass and an annual toll road vignette on the car window instead of a ridiculous toll booth.

The fact is, the new bypass will not take make a noticeable improvement to the traffic situation in this city. As long as there's an alternative, it will be used. Hence my idea to sever the alternative. Looking after "people's needs" is what has the city crippled by this road, which in turn is driving these same shopping people to other cities! Most people are doing short hops, not going from Rosslare to Cork. If the existing bridge was closed with only buses allowed cross it, people would think twice about driving from Ferrybank to City Square.

In this country, either eliminating the alternative (trucks banned from Dublins streets) or tolling it heavily (cars using the Dublin Port Tunnel) is the ONLY way they will do something.

merlante

Waterford 2014 plan promo, before we ran out of cash: http://www.waterfordcity.ie/documents/downloads/Waterford2014.pdf

If everything is this document happened, we'd be laughing. But the cash is needed.

Sully

Room for M&S in €280m planned Newgate centre
By Marion O'Mara

A DEVELOPER behind plans for a €280m shopping, residential, leisure and hotel complex in the heart of the city believes that any move to encourage the opening of ‘out of town’ clothes shops will add to the further dereliction of the city.

Dan Kickham of KRM Construction Partnership, which has received planning permission for a massive development at Michael Street, New Street, John’s Lane and Stephen Street, was reacting to a renewed commitment by the UK retailer, Marks & Spencer, to open up two stores in Waterford.

Subject to planning permission M&S wants to open a fashion/household store in a new development on the Airport Road and they are also willing to open a ‘Simply Food Store’ in the city centre.

A shuttle bus would ferry customers between the two areas in a plan that is envisaged to retain the vibrancy of the city centre as a shopping destination.

Dan Kickham believes, however, that the move would tear the heart out of the city and would add to further dereliction.

Though having applied for planning permission for a Tesco store on the outskirts of his native Enniscorthy, and having been rejected by An Bord Pleanála for that development, he said, “any out of town developments mitigate against a city or town centre.”

Mr. Kickham, who is one of three involved in the KRM consortium, said that when their development bordering Michael Street, New Street, John’s Lane and Stephen Street is completed it could accommodate both M&S fashion and food store shops.

Construction work was due to begin on the Newgate Centre site by early summer but the sod turning has been postponed as the developers continue to tie in tenants for the shopping complex.

Mr. Kickham said he would hope to see work begin on site “this side of Christmas”. He estimates 1,300 jobs would be created within the development and 650 during the construction phase.
Click Here!

He confirmed that talks were ongoing with a number of international and local retailers and while he declined to reveal names he said some of the big names already located in the Dundrum Shopping Centre, in Dublin, would be coming here.

As news broke in the past week that Edward Holdings were to re-submit an application for planning permission for their site on the Outer Ring Road, Independent city councillor, Mary Roche, who was re-elected to the City Council at the weekend, indicated that she would be against the plan.

Edward Holdings have secured a commitment from Marks & Spencer that they would be the anchor tenant on the Airport Road complex and it was also revealed that a supermarket would be opened in the city centre with a shuttle bus operating between the two.

Cllr. Roche, however, dismissed the promise saying, “Developers will promise us the earth, moon and stars. They will even lead you to believe that they want to ‘support’ Waterford and ‘underpin’ the primacy of the city centre when what they are really interested in is maximising their own prof-its.”

She went on to say that she remained unconvinced by the Marks & Spencer argument - even with a food store in the city centre.

“If they, Marks & Spencer, want to sell to Waterford’s large shopping population, and we do want them here, then they can agree tomorrow - even today - to come to a properly zoned and ready to go, with full planning permission already received, large shopping mall, right in the heart of the city. That’s a win for all of us,” she concluded.

Source: http://waterford-news.com/news/story/?trs=mhauqlsncw&cat=news

mike65

Well he needs a name tenant doesn't he? Also Edward Holdings are not going to be thrilled at pressure on M&S, I presume they have some sort of contract agreed?