The Hidden Glasgow Forums

Did I read somewhere there was gonna be a new park built on the Selfridges site in Merchant City? Or was that a load of old tosh.

I believe this a proposal under Glasgow City Council's Stalled Spaces Scheme prompted by local demand following the success of the Shuttle Street project.

ET

Work begins to clear key city site after 11 gap years




WORK has finally started clearing the Glasgow city centre site earmarked for top store Selfridges.
Contractors have begun erecting scaffolding at the corner of Trongate and Candleriggs and will take the buildings down by hand.
Meanwhile, a digger has started demolishing properties in the centre of the site.
Because of the scale of the work there will be partial pavement and road closures in Trongate and the south section of Candleriggs and some pavement closures in Trongate.
ScottishPower switched off supplies to the site in advance of demolition crews moving in.
It is expected to take the rest of the year to clear the large, overgrown site.
Selfridges is paying for the demolition and despite receiving two offers for the land, has decided to hold on to it.
The firm plans to turn it into an event space, with pop-up shops and other attractions in time for the Commonwealth Games.
A city council spokesman said the second phase of the work would result in a comprehensive redevelopment with, potentially, shops, leisure and housing.
In 2002, Selfridges bought the former Goldberg's site, which is bounded by Tron- gate, Wilson Street, Brunswick Street and Candleriggs.
But it quickly became clear plans to build one of its upmarket department stores had been put on hold.
Discussions have gone on between Selfridges and the city council and three years ago the company applied for permission to turn the land into a car park.
Local shopkeepers have complained for more than a decade that the boarded-up site impacts on the number of visitors to the area.
City council leader Gordon Matheson said: "The council has recently had positive discussions with Selfridges.
"Selfridges is now carrying out a controlled demolition of a number of buildings on the site.
"I know it will be a great relief for many of the businesses and residents in the Merchant City that activity is now taking place at this location.
"My officers will continue discussions with Selfridges on how we can use this key site which sits on a major route for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games.
"I am sure we can come up with a suitable temporary use ahead of the Games that will ensure our city is looking its best as the world spotlight is shone on Glasgow."
Glasgow Chamber of Commerce chief executive Stuart Patrick said: "This site has been a blot on the success story of the Merchant City for over a decade and we are overjoyed to hear that moves are afoot to bring it back into commercial use.
"It is great that it will be cleaned up and available for the Games, but even better that soon afterwards work will begin to have it contributing fully to the growth of the city centre."

*Car park. 10 year licence.

MotoMad wrote:*Car park. 10 year licence.

Great. More cars.

With hindsight, there was probably no way they could have kept that eyesore standing any longer. The steel girders holding up what's left would probably rust away....I don't suppose the fact that its only one block away from the 2014 offices on Albion Street had anything to do with the motivation to flatten it before the hurly-burly next year begins.

There's quite a bit of the area around Glassford St/ Trongate could do with a tidy up sooner rather than later.

They are already demolishing the buildings within the centre of the area, lots of crashing and falling buildings last night. Hopefully they will clear the whole area - and not for a car park !

The car parking element has been deleted from the scheme.Public realm and Pop up shops are in planning.

10/01115/DC | Demolition of listed and unlisted buildings within Central Conservation area to allow redevelopment of site for temporary use (10 years) as surface level car park (24 hour operation) with public realm space, hard and soft landscaping, vehicular and pedestrian access and associated works. | Site Bounded By Trongate/Wilson St/Brunswick St/ Candleriggs Glasgow

Well, I'm sure we've all seen far worse ideas.

[Harrumph]Having said that, I do wish the drawings for such things weren't always of how they would look on some idealised July day.[/Harrumph]

This is total pie in the sky of course - but it's a real shame that Selfridges didn't take over the Lewis's building (remember the two were actually once affiliated) and turn THAT into its Glasgow store. Whenever I walk into Selfridges in London I'm reminded of the shop that Lewis's in Glasgow used to be - the big foodhall on the ground floor etc and a proper toy department!

The late 80's redevelopment of the Lewis's building was an unmitigated disaster in every sense. Just think if you could punt Debenhams (and all the other tenants) over to the ex-Goldbergs site and put Selfridges into Lewis's. It's a far more prominent and central location than further east. Sure they are touting regeneration of the whole Tron/Candleriggs area but do they really think that Selfridges building there would bring about the desired benefits?

You might say it could have been Glasgow's "Harrods"?

Does any big retailer now want to come to central Glasgow? The Fort, Silverburn, Braehead all offer free parking and lots of shops. St Enoch Centre will probably go down as it seems the "council" are punting the top of Buchanan Street as the place to be. Look how Sauchiehall Street and Argyle St east of Stockwell St have gone down. I recall 50 or more years ago St Georges Cross, Partick, Shawlands etc used to be great places to shop at Christmas. Goldbergs, Bremners, Forsyth's, Paisley's etc all gone. If you were a kid Wylie Hills always had a great toy store at Christmas. Had a uni friend got a Christmas job in Wylie Hills toy dept. He was flogging ballons that you could make into animals! Then yoyo's! Plus got to chat up all Santas elves who were all pretty young female students. And he got paid for it.

Having recently returned to Glasgow after 20 years dahnsarf, I'd forgotten what an architecturally bankrupt monstrosity the St Enoch Centre is. What was being drunk by the Planning Committee at the time the planning application was approved ?

Glen Fiddoch wrote:Having recently returned to Glasgow after 20 years dahnsarf, I'd forgotten what an architecturally bankrupt monstrosity the St Enoch Centre is. What was being drunk by the Planning Committee at the time the planning application was approved ?

As I recall there wasn't exactly an endless queue of developers climbing over each other to build on what was an awkward site.

Glasgow needed the jobs and the income from commercial rates. It was a time when people were leaving Glasgow in droves - many heading 'dahnsarf'.