by JohnnyG » Tue Mar 12, 2013 12:12 pm
Hi,
I can help you all with this one as I worked for John Menzies.
Menzies purchased the entire site from Woolworths for £13M using their pension fund as an investment, at that time they were round in 20 Buchanan Street in the Wylie Hill store as they bought them out a few years earlier (they also owned the Early Learning Centre) but that store was pretty run down and was over several floors, so Argyle Street was a far superior site to move for them and was only on two sales floors for customers but it had three floors above the ground, one for canteen and admin (Woolworths restaurant was to the front of this floor and was a massive area), the other two were stockrooms.
They then refurbished the site and sectioned off the corner unit as it was very desirable and could command a high rent, the first tenant was House of Clydesdale who also had shops under the name of James Scott and were similar to Dixons but they also sold white goods as well, in less than twelve months they had gone into receivership and ceased trading.
It was then that Dixons came on the scene and they spent a huge amount of money refurbishing and traded away for many years, at one point it most their most successful store in the UK.
The restaurant area lay empty for a few years but had public access from Argyle Street, a company from Blackpool approached them called Parker & Franks, they were a discount store not unlike Poundland in many ways, they spent quite a bit to get it ready but it lasted no more than eighteen months and it was never a great success for them, I think it was difficult to get customers up the stairs to the first floor as you could see nothing from the street.
After they went away a Newcastle catering company opened up Sarah's Restaurant and that was quite successful for a few years but they choose not to renew the lease after the 5 years were up, it then lay empty.
Now across the road from Menzies was WH Smith who were the opposition, but that site was never successful and was only kept on because Menzies were across the road, there was great rivalry between the two companies more so on the wholesale newspaper side as that is where the money is, so they struck a gentlemen’s agreement whereby Menzies would leave wholesaling alone in England and WH Smith would do the same in Scotland.
Then for about a year Tesco came on the scene, that appeared a bit strange to me as the site is vast and they only wanted a small part, while discussions were going on Menzies constantly denied everything saying no nothing was going on between them and Tesco, but it was, I found the outline planning applications and that it was granted in principal.
Across the road WH Smith was closing as they were not going to renew the lease given there was not enough sales for both shops to survive. Menzies took the lease and site over spending quite a bit on it and changing it dramatically for the better.
So Menzies moved across the road, the new site was a better size for them anyway and the old store was closed and sold to Tesco who moved in, though they only used the ground and basement leaving the upper floors empty, that way they would not pay rates for them and keep the costs down.
After some years Tesco sold the site to TK Max who must have spent a million plus as they gutted it from top to bottom, I do mean gutted it, I think this is their largest UK store, it was very forward thinking for them as Selfridges have a site in Trongate awaiting development when the time is right I guess.