Conditions in the 19th and 21st Century Sheffield. Retail. Peace Gardens Old John Lewis Store New John Lewis Site

Conditions in the 19th and 21st Century Sheffield. Retail. Firstly we would like to talk about Sheffield city centre and use a few images to show some of the things that have changed there. This picture shows the high street taken from Cole’s corner at the bottom of Fargate in 1936.

Conditions in the 19th and 21st Century Sheffield. Retail.

- Some of the issues currently facing the city centre. - Customers rarely walk to from one end of the city to the other during a single shopping trip, due to it been nearly a mile long. - There is no obvious circular route to encourage consumers to remain in the city centre. - The city centre is lacking in anchor stores, for example cole brothers, a significant store, has its own car park and is set slightly back from the other shops and therefore diminishes its role as a city centre anchor store, therefore people use it as a separate retail destination. - The Cities prime retail pitch is in a compact, well defined area on Fargate, and is limited to 37 units, very little redevelopment has taken place here, when the units do become available there often taken up by existing retailers so that they can improve there existing stores, rather than attracting new business. - The third retail sector, which extends along the high street from the junction with fargate to castle market, has developed into a discount area which is anchored by T.J.Huges, however there are a number of vacant units in this area, making the area feel run down. - Most of multiple retailers, such as next and burtons are represented, but there is a lack of quality, specialist clothing stores, such as Ted baker, Jaeger, etc - Lack of suitable high profile retail sites in Sheffield presents an issue, as high profile retailers need high profile sites.

Conditions in the 19th and 21st Century Sheffield. Retail. - Is the redevelopment of the city centre the solution ? - The redevelopment of the city centre is due to start in 2008, costing an estimated £500,000,000, the plan is to totally revamp the centre into what there calling the "new retail quarter", which is going to sit between Pinnstone street, Leopold square and Charter square and the new Devonshire quarter. - The project will be retail led within a total of 85,000 sq m of retail space including a new, twice as large John Lewis store as anchor, together with city living, leisure facilities, a hotel and car parking. Peace Gardens Old John Lewis Store New John Lewis Site

Conditions in the 19th and 21st Century Sheffield. Retail.