It is a dilemma that many landlords and asset managers are all too familiar with – what do you do with former department store space?
Over the past few years, hundreds of thousands of square feet have been surrendered as anchor tenant retailers such as BHS, Debenhams and House of Fraser have disappeared from shopping centres and high streets up and down the land.
Some landlords and asset managers have successfully filled the space by subdividing it and letting it to multiple retailers. Others have looked at a change of use, for example, to residential. But one of the most popular options over the past couple of years has been to pivot the space into leisure use, and particularly experiential leisure and competitive socialising.
That is what has happened at the Kingsgate shopping centre in the heart of Huddersfield, where the redevelopment of a former department store is providing the focal point not just for the regeneration of the shopping centre it is located in but also for the wider regeneration plans for the West Yorkshire town.
When the Kingsgate opened in the early 2000s, it was the third shopping centre in the town. The 280,000 sq ft centre was developed by private property company WD Ltd, which has retained ownership to this day.
The Kingsgate was anchored by a 85,000 sq ft House of Fraser store at its southern end and was a typical fashion-led centre of the sort commonplace at the time, but that was then. The retail landscape has changed dramatically over the past 20 years as a result of the rise of e-commerce and demise of many of the UK’s long-standing retailers and department store operators.
So, it came as little surprise when it was announced in 2022 that the House of Fraser store was scheduled to close. Around that time, the owner of the Kingsgate was already considering replacing some of the surplus retail space with a leisure development in the northern part of the centre, but when the department store unit became vacant, attention switched to the opposite end of the site.
One of the first ideas was to fill the vacant space with a cinema operator, but this idea was quickly rejected, recalls Will Thomas, partner at KLM Real Estate, which is joint agent on the centre with Newns Webster.
“We did speak to cinema operators, but the desire was always to do something a little bit bigger,” says Thomas.
With that in mind, a deal with struck with The Light in late 2022 to bring its leisure concept to the centre. This month (Friday 11 April), the new 70,000 sq ft leisure centre, which covers three floors, opened its doors for the first time.
The Kingsgate venue was the first site opened by The Light under new owner Luke Johnson and Risk Capital Partners, which acquired the brand last year.
In some of the earlier iterations of The Light, the focus was very much on the cinema offer, with other leisure activities taking more of a back seat. However, over the past few years, the brand’s offer has evolved and although its new Huddersfield site will feature a six-screen cinema, it will also host a wide range of different leisure activities, in addition to a strong F&B offer.
The leisure line-up at the Kingsgate includes pool, darts, axe throwing, bowling, karaoke, mini golf, climbing, laser quest and a games arcade.
The intention is to evolve the offer over time, explains Steve Bateman, asset manager of the Kingsgate.
“It’s very flexible,” says Bateman. “Their business model is such that they can bring in new concepts and new ideas and keep it really fresh. That’s what really resonated with the team here. We wanted to secure a proposition that could really flex going forwards in terms of providing an innovative all-encompassing leisure offer reflecting what the catchment and the customer really wanted.”
That catchment is sizeable with around 120,000 people in the immediate area and circa 230,000 people within a 30-minute drive. At the moment, most people in the local vicinity, including Huddersfield’s large student population, tend to go to larger regional cities like Leeds or Sheffield to get their leisure fix, but the Kingsgate team are confident that The Light’s evolving offer will help to capture a lot of the spend that is currently being deployed elsewhere.
While the opening of The Light is a key moment for the Kingsgate centre, Bateman says it is just the first step in the journey.
“The strategy going forward is to then turn the rest of the shopping centre into something which is entirely complementary with a best-in-class leisure anchor,” he explains. “Having that leisure anchor is very much a deliberate strategy to offer a much wider appeal to customers and somewhere that resonates more with the wider regeneration of the town centre.
“As the retail offer consolidates around the town, the Kingsgate will become even more focused as the prime location in the town. The idea is to reposition the shopping centre gently and consolidate the demand that is there from existing operators in the town, but also present Kingsgate as a great opportunity for operators who don’t really know Huddersfield and hopefully will see the shopping centre and the town as a location where they can trade really well.”
The centre has already started the process of evolving its offer away from fashion and bringing in retailers previously located elsewhere in the town. It recently agreed a deal to relocate Boots to a 16,000 sq ft unit from its previous location on King Street, Holland & Barrett has signed for the former 2,000 sq ft Body Shop unit and Pandora has relocated to a larger 1,500 sq ft unit.
In addition to the introduction of The Light, the redevelopment also features four prominent F&B units ranging from 3,000 sq ft to 7,500 sq ft, which have already attracted a lot of attention from potential occupiers, says Thomas.
“As awareness of our recent lettings and the arrival of The Light has intensified since the start of the year, we have seen a significant uplift in enquiries from retail, F&B and leisure operators looking to take space at the Kingsgate shopping centre,” he says.
The redevelopment of the Kingsgate centre ties in nicely with the wider ambitious plans Kirklees Council has for the town centre as part of its £250m Huddersfield Blueprint. Over the next decade, Huddersfield is set to benefit from several regeneration initiatives that will consolidate the town’s retail offer and prioritise culture and families.
A key part of these plans is the demolition of the Piazza Shopping Centre, which will be replaced by the ‘Our Cultural Heart’ project being delivered by Milligan in partnership with Turner & Townsend and Kirklees Council. As part of this ambitious transformation, a 17,000 sq ft food hall will operate from the restored, Grade II-listed Queensgate Market building.
“The food hall space within the iconic Queensgate Market building is special. It presents a great opportunity to define the character and future of Huddersfield town centre for future generations,” says Alex Hyams, head of mixed-use asset management at Milligan. “Our focus is finding the right operator and the right concept to bring the space to life. We’ve had fantastic engagement from the food hall sector – regionally and nationally – and we’re working to select a suitable operator for this unique opportunity.”
In addition to the food hall, the regeneration project will also include a digitally-enabled museum and gallery to showcase Yorkshire’s heritage and creativity, a state-of-the-art library, a new public square for festivals and events, an urban park and a 2,200-capacity live music venue.
On the other side of the town centre, the council is planning to revamp Huddersfield Market, which is located in a heritage building on Northumberland Street, to create an upgraded version of a traditional market with a better F&B offering, and it is also committed to regenerating the historic George Hotel, located next to the town’s railway station.
The George sits in one of the town’s most bustling areas, which has already seen investment from Historic England and is expected to significantly benefit from the multibillion-pound TransPennine Route Upgrade.
“I believe our plans demonstrate our sustainable, forward-thinking approach to regeneration, says Graham Turner, cabinet member for regeneration at Kirklees Council. “Our intention is to attract more visitors to our town centre by future-proofing key parts of the town’s history, creating new job opportunities and acting as a catalyst for further investment and economic growth.
“Our ambition is to give local people and visitors more reasons to spend time in this fantastic town. By increasing footfall, and in turn commercial opportunities, our plans will benefit existing and future businesses from all sectors.”
The placemaking efforts of the local authority combined with the repurposing of space in the Kingsgate point to a bright future for the town, believes Jonathan Hardy, Kingsgate centre manager.
“We need to really change the perception of the town, and we need to change the narrative around Huddersfield, which has never reached the peaks of the likes of Leeds and Manchester,” he says. “It also never plummeted to the depths of other towns in the North of England and now we’ve got something going on and something we can actually champion, and as a result there’s a renewed optimism and a renewed pride in the town. So, it’s definitely going in the right direction.”
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