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Newport Friars Walk signs leisure anchor

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v02_07edit.jpgNewport has finally started to find its feet. The news last week that Queensberry had signed its leisure anchor for the £100m Friars Walk scheme in Newport seems to say regeneration is at last beginning to take it's first faltering steps.

As revealed by EG in this week's magazine Cineworld will anchor the leisure part of the scheme with an eight-screen cinema. There's a sparkly new picture of the scheme above and below is how almost the same view point looks today. Debenhams has already signed as the retail anchor and with the incredibly acquisitive cinema operator now taking space it hints that the occupiers haven't given up on Newport.

One agent said that it won't be long before Marks and Spencer makes a reappearance in the town. The retail closed down it's city centre store WHEN in favour of an out of town location, but that could all be about to change. Queensberry have said in the past that they are in still in a dialogue with M&S and it would be mad not to.

But what really gives everyone hope is the fact that Queensberry says it is in "advanced talks" with national operators for the ten restaurant units and has agreed terms with its main fashion anchors. An announcement on the latter is expected very soon.

Newport is still too often the butt of too many jokes. But if, as promised, the developer can nail those retailers then the pundits are going to have to find a different punchline.

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Great Yarmouth casino closes in on two restaurant signings

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Excuse the pun, but casinos are a bit of a gamble at the moment. Just look around the country at those shiny licenses everyone fought tooth and nail to secure back in 2005. Out of them Newham is the only one to be built so far, and lets face it the timetable imposed by the Olympics played a BIG part in getting that open.

Great Yarmouth wants to be the second. It's one of only eight licensing authorities in England authorised to issue a large casino license and the first seaside town to hand out a license and Pleasure and Leisure Corporation has plans for an £18m casino-led scheme called The Edge to the south of the Pleasure Beach.

The scheme was awarded the license back in April but it wasn't a walk in the park getting to this point. Karen Hawes, of Hawes Price which is development consultants for the scheme, says they had to push Great Yarmouth council to get the process going. Most of the councils were wary of being the first, most didn't even know how to run a casino competition and she says, nobody wanted to the first and get it wrong, or worse, end up with a judicial challenge. 

Now, The Edge has offers from two restaurants (out of six) and expects to be in a position to name names by the end of the month. It's currently deciding on whether to go ahead with a budget hotel and once that's been nailed down it will tweak its planning with a view to starting building in the autumn of next year. 

Listen below to hear her discuss pushing the casino process through the council, troubles within the casino industry and what's next for the development.


Chilangos aims to be as big as Itsu

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One of the perks of being an EG journalist is that sometimes you do get a free lunch. Yesterday I was (very kindly) invited to Chilangos. It claims to be authentic Mexican food pitched somewhere between a fast food takeaway and a sit down meal that has won it plaudits from the pundits and got people queuing out the doors. It's headed up by two friends who met while working at Skype and they have big expansion plans. 

From a standing start five years ago they've opened up three restaurants in London. They are under offer on another unit and in legals for one more in the capital. Its aim is to take on Itsu in terms of size and reach, which currently has 35 shops. We'll be looking at them in more detail in our London pages this autumn but here are a few pics from their Islington branch taken yesterday.
 

Drinking pushes regional markets ahead of London

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4100693238_0fcda27d12.jpgFancy a drink? It seems quite a few of you outside London having been enjoying more than 'just the one'.  

It's not often these days that you hear regional markets are out performing the London market.  But Coffer Peach's tracker looking at the pub and restaurant growth shows that June monthly sales outside the M25 (which is what it calls the rest of the country) are up 5.5% compared to 3% inside the M25.

Coffer Peach released its Business Tracker today but have given EG the regional breakdown. It says that like for like sales growth is up 2.1% outside the M25 compared to a drop of 0.8% in London. 

Now, before everyone gets carried away, the MAT (or moving annual target figure) is better in London than outside (2.4% versus 1.5% like for like sales growth compared to the previous 12 months).

Generally, Davis Coffer Lyons says that drink-led pubs saw a healthy rise in like-for-like sales while casual restaurant chains suffered a corresponding fall in June. Now, we know some of the regional occupier markets are really suffering, and we wouldn't want to say all you local agents had turned to drink, but it is a bit of a coincidence....

Picture by Bernt Rostad on Flickr

For a slideshow, please click on the above image

On Friday, Land Securities treated me to a bird's eye view of the work in progress that is its 1m sq ft Trinity Leeds development.

As you can see from the pictures, the shopping scheme is really taking shape and from the vantage point of LandSec's marketing suite, it is quite an impressive undertaking.

While in Leeds, I also caught up with Town Centre Securities' which is revamping it's Merrion Centre, had a look at what there is to see of the Leeds Arena building site and had my eye caught by Downing Developments' award winning student digs, Broadcasting Place.

 

Related posts:

Pics and video: LandSec's Trinity Leeds development update

The planet's best tall building of 2010? Student digs in Leeds, apparantly 

Rock 'n roll as Bury scheme opens its doors

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At times it may have seemed like an impossible dream, getting a 1.6m sq ft retail and leisure scheme up and running during a recession, losing a developer along the way to administration, but The Rock in Bury finally flung open its doors last week. 

More than 18,000 eager shoppers visited the M&S and Debenhams-anchored scheme within the first two hours of opening and EGTV was there to capture the excitement.

It is 84% let by area and retail and leisure reporter Annabel Dixon spoke to Hammerson, which took over the development for the administrators Deloitte in January, and some of retailers about the journey to the opening.

You can also read the full story by clicking here:

Judge rejects council's pleas over Leeds arena

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Thumbnail image for sweet guitar.jpgAll Leeds council wanted to do was make sweet music.

But today in the council there must have been rather more head banging than rocking out.

Its hopes of a Leeds arena have suffered another blow as the latest twist in the Leeds arena saga emerged. The council said this lunchtime that they're disappointed in a high court judge's decision which rejected the council's bid to overturn parts of a legal action from former city marketing chief Jan Fletcher (there's more on the case by clicking on the continue reading link below).

Jan is a well-known, and fairly feisty character on the Leeds scene and not one to lay back and let anyone walk all over her. But even so this latest turn does look a bit unusual.

Jan's Montpellier Estates has a planning application in with the council for the very site on Sweet Street she'd hoped they'd pick for the arena. She's also like the license the council holds for a large casino.

Now I'm sure that Leeds council will be at pains to point out that one case will in no way influence the other but few developers with a major pending planning application want to say an ill word of the council never mind launch a full blown legal action.

A plan needs to come together in Greater Manchester

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ATeam.jpgUnless urgent action is taken, the satellite towns of Greater Manchester can look forward to a future of decline.

That was the somewhat grim starting point for a debate held last Friday at Manchester United Football Club's Old Trafford stadium, hosted by the Greater Manchester Business Leadership Council and chaired by Ask Developments' chief executive, Ken Knott.

The high profile panel included Neil Mitchenall, co-founder of retail agency Lunson Mitchenall, Drivers Jonas Deloitte's Manchester head Simon Bedford, and Richard Akers, managing director of Land Securities' retail team.

In an A-Team-style call-to-arms, Knott urged that private sector stakeholders in the eight towns of the city region need to put their heads together and come up with a solution in a bid to bring a concerted regeneration effort to the region.  

Jamie Oliver looks for Manchester's leisure hot-spot

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Talk in Manchester suggests that everybody's favourite mockney chef, Jamie Oliver, (pictured) is close to agreeing a deal to bring his Jamie's Italian restaurant brand to the city, at long last.

After scouring potential sites , the face of the in-no-way-annoying Sainsbury's adverts and his people are likely to settle on the grand 1920s-built 100 King Street in the city centre; a former Midland Bank (and latterly HSBC) grade II listed building which is owned by Yorkshire-based Marshall CDP.

Oliver's hunt for space has raised the question of just where is the trendy and upmarket retail and leisure pitch in Manchester these days?

Traditionally, King Street in the city core has been the stomping ground of Mancunians with a penchant for designer brands and trendy eateries.

But Mike Ingall's Allied London is determined to inject a bit of luxury and trendiness into its Spinningfields estate on the edge of the city centre. This autumn, at long last (a mere 18 months after it was due to open) Allied will unveil its 'boulevard of international fashion', The Avenue, which has already tempted brands such as Armani away from King Street.

Council gives a boost to Bradford's regeneration

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Southgate Bradford.jpgIt's as if Christmas has come early for developer McAleer & Rushe.

Bradford city council has agreed to provide £6m to bridge the funding gap at the developer's £45m mixed-use Southgate scheme in the city centre.

As reported in EG last month, the developer went cap in hand to the council for extra cash after its funders, Bank of Scotland in Ireland, said it would only provide 75% of development costs on condition that the developer secures and spends the remaining 25% of costs first. And this was despite the developer securing a pre-let for the entire 117,000 sq ft office element and Jury's Inn as the hotel operator.

But the clinking of champagne glasses may not last long, as a gift this is not. The developer will need to have paid back the £6m, with interest, by the time the project is completed in October next year, which is when Provident Financial, wants to move into its new offices.

And with the council already spending £10m on Bradford's City Park and mirror pool water feature at a time when local authority finances are already under pressure, the council will no doubt be feeling that this repayment date can't come soon enough.

 

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