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17th FEBRUARY 2006
By CHRISTINE EADE
The closing down sale of Walton-on-Thames department store, Beales, last month was an anticlimax.
A stampede of shoppers had been envisaged, some chasing the £2m worth of bargains advertised in the windows, others coming to witness the demise of Elmbridge borough’s only department store. To cope with the influx, the store had planned to allow only 10 shoppers in at a time. However, the crowd were kept at bay by a power cut that plunged Beales and the surrounding area into darkness, ensuring a miserable final day’s trading for the local landmark.
It seams it can only get better for O&H the developer and contractor of the final phase of The Heart, a mixed-use scheme that will replace the department store. It paid Beales £575,000 to surrender its lease a year early, and by 31 january demolition had begun on the two-level 1960’s department store, which consisted of two buildings koined by an enclosed glass walkway.
It will be replaced by a 17,500 sq ft (1,625 sq m) mini-department store, six smaller shops and a 10,000 sq ft (929 sq m) gym, topped by an 11,500 sq ft (1,068 sq m) library.
O&H has yet to name the department store operator that will replace Beales. Butas the new space for the store is so small, a likely candidate is Debenhams’ Desire, the truncated department store format already established in Truro and South Shields.
The first phase of the Heart, which opened in 2000, was Gleeson and Frogmore’s development of a 70,000 sq ft (6,503 sq m) Sainsbury’s.
In 2003, Frogmore sold the sites of the remaining phases to O&H the private company that owns the shopping centre at King’s Walk on the King’s Road in London’s Chelsea. The second phase, which is scheduled to open this autumn, consists of six storeys of 279 flats above a shopping mall. Barratt, the housebuilder, decided against developing the flats a few months before the sale.
When demolition of Beales started last month, O&H was also able to announce the first two retail lettings in this mall. Next is to take a ground-floor and mezzanine shop of 16,500 sq ft (1,532 sq m) on the outside of the mall, and New Look, which already has a shop in the town, will take 12,000 sq ft (1,115sq m) inside the centre.
The Next letting, the retailer’s debut in Walton, is described by O&H as “the size of approximately six tennis courts”. But any new shop would make an impact in Walton-on-Thames, which features only a small, unpedestrianised high street.
A redundant Safeway, closed when Morrisons took over the chain, is under offer. Locals say that Sainsbury’s has been losing trade to a recently opened Tesco in nearby Hersham. Despite this, O&H claims that more than 70 retailers and restaurateurs have shown an interest in the 52 shops and restaurants available at The Heart.
Nevertheless, Walton-on-Thames faces an uphill climb in the retail league. Its low profile has kept rents down. Colliers CRE puts zone A rents in Walton-on-Thames – although O&H would not comment on the new level of rents it has achieved.
To add to the town’s embarrassment, the Bentall Centre in Kingston upon Thames has taken a large advertising hoarding at the back of The Heart site, urging shoppers to go to Kingston. The development has faced some resistence along the way. The entire three-phase scheme replaces a car park and secondary retail in the land between New Zealand Avenue and Hepworth Way. There was no link between to the prime pitch of the High Street and the shopping mall with shops above that forms the second phase of the development.
O&H also said the only way to link The Heart to the high street, where retailers such as Boots, WH Smith and fashion chain QS operate, was to demolish the Dorothy Perkins shop and construct a kiosk-lined mall between the High Street and the second phase.
Local protest groups tried to claim Walton would be losing a fine, historic half timbered shop, but research showed the shop to be a pastiche and of no architectural merit.
Dorothy Perkins has since moved in with Walton’s other Arcadia Facia, Burtons, and its former shop has been demolished, clearing the way for the link.
The finishing post is in sight for The Heart. Last week marked the topping out – but no topping ceremony – for the one - , two and three-bedroom flats of the second phase. Seventeen of the first 34 flats available have been sold.
The Heart is an enormous development site dominating a town that has nissed the development booms of the last century.
But if it succeeds in improving the town’s retail circulation, shoppers may at last be persuaded that they have an alternative to Kingston on their doorstep.
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