Copyright scotsman
To be honest I had never heard of Westfield and so far, from speaking to others, there is a small minority of people who know the Westfield brand and think the name change is an enhancement and the vast majority to which it means nothing. This I not ideal for the centre, as no matter how good the reputation of the name is, if people have not heard of it, it doesn’t matter. It is a worldwide brand and would appear to be better known abroad than in the UK, which given the number of visitors Edinburgh has, is not a bad thing, but for the UK there will certainly be some work to be done to improve the name recognition. I’m not sure if the name change is meant to impress potential retailers to move into the centre, but from the public’s side of things, the problem is that it is not much different from any other big shopping centre and that is unlikely to change. More than ever since the pandemic, it has been very noticeable how many families visit Edinburgh and certainly that has benefited some of the shops in the Waverley Market, including myself. But I know from talking to families that visit Avalanche and ask where else they should go that when I mention the St James Quarter they often say they have been already and have not been impressed. The French retail giant Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW) has acquired a 25 per cent stake in the St James, which houses 110 retail, leisure and dining units and 152 apartments, from Nuveen Real Estate, but there has been no news of what price was paid. The majority owner and pension investor APG is retaining its 75 per cent stake in the centre. It is also not clear why Nuveen sold their share, but in a statement from URW they said “Together, we will elevate the asset’s performance by leveraging our retail operations and media expertise, as well as bringing the globally recognised Westfield brand to the destination.” As for APG they said that “the centre will benefit from URW’s operational expertise and innovative services”, which of course, is true. Lots of retail business speak there! It is definitely going to be interesting this Christmas to see how the shopping dynamics in Edinburgh work between the shops on Princes Street and George Street, the Waverley Market and the St James/Westfield. Slightly further afield my old friends in the Grassmarket say things are certainly better than they have been, while few shops on the Royal Mile seem happy. I think it is fairly safe to say the Christmas Market will be the same as every year and a big disappointment to many, and that actually benefits most nearby retailers these days, though despite the sky high prices it does impact on food sales elsewhere. It isn’t that long ago of course that Waverley Mall changed its name back to Waverley Market and that made little difference. Westfield Edinburgh will be hoping for a better result.
