Hotfoots it to Mayfair - Mayfair Times

26
retail
The
future
of the
West End
A report last month by industry magazine Drapers revealed
that Oxford Street outstrips its international counterparts in
Paris, Milan, New York and Tokyo when it comes to high-street
fashion. In a poll of 50,000 fashion professionals, nine out of
ten thought the street was best for edginess, affordability,
choice, designer collaborations and speed of translating
catwalk designs to the shop floor.
Over the past ten years, Oxford Street has seen a massive
transformation, with the arrival of international flagship brands
such as Nike, Gap and Uniqlo, and a £5 million makeover of
Oxford Circus, which culminated last year in the launch of
London’s first diagonal crossing.
The crossing, inspired by Shibuya crossing in Tokyo, was
part of a master plan by the New West End Company –
Europe’s largest Business Improvement District (BID) – when it
was set up ten years ago to drive forward London’s retail
heartland. The company worked alongside West End property
owners to facilitate the project and has worked closely with
Westminster City Council, the Mayor of London and Transport
THE NEW WEST END COMPANY’S
AMBITIOUS 2020 VISION
INCLUDES REJUVENATING THE
EAST END OF OXFORD STREET,
REDUCING TRAFFIC AND
BOOSTING SPACE FOR
PEDESTRIANS BY 50 PER CENT.
SELMA DAY REPORTS
for London on measures to improve pedestrian space and
reduce traffic on Oxford Street and Regent Street.
Other achievements include the regeneration of Marble
Arch; a crime-intelligence partnership resulting in a 61 per cent
reduction in smash-and-grab burglaries; introducing clearer
signage; providing a team of Red Caps to assist shoppers; and
a large-scale street-cleaning operation. In 2005, the company
launched the UK’s first VIP day – a traffic-free event, which has
seen retailers increase their sales by £500 million in five years.
“I think there’s been a noticeable impact on the streets of
the West End both in terms of operations and marketing
messages,” says Richard Dickinson, CEO of the New West End
Company. “All that would never have happened without the
New West End Company, because nobody was looking at it at
that micro level. We go out and are on the case day in, day out
– our Red Caps are constantly reporting things that go wrong
[to Westminster City Council].”
Having played a role in generating a retail spend of over
£5.6 billion a year in the West End over the past decade, the
“The retail
heartland is
coming out of
recession and
there is a lot
of investment
everywhere”
Richard Dickinson,
CEO of the
New West End
Company
BOND STREET WILL SEE MORE HIGH-PROFILE EVENTS
AND CATWALK SHOWS
New West End Company recently announced its 2020 Vision –
its ambitious plan for the next ten years. Revitalising the east
end of Oxford Street is high on the agenda and has already
been given a kick-start with the recent announcement that
Primark is to open an 85,000 sq ft store opposite the new
Crossrail Tottenham Court Road tube station.
A joint venture between Land Securities and Frogmore Real
Estate Partners, the development – Europe’s largest retail deal
in four years – is due to be completed by June next year. Along
with the Crossrail development, it will give a considerable uplift
to this end of Oxford Street, which is often considered to be
the poor relation.
“These are encouraging signs,” says Dickinson.
“Development is coming back and London is pretty buoyant,
as you can see with the Park House development – some
100,000 sq ft of retail space right in the heart of Mayfair [at the
west end of Oxford Street]. The retail heartland is coming out of
recession and there is a lot of investment everywhere. The
rents that are being achieved now in Oxford Street and Bond
Street are fantastic – they are at record levels.”
A recent report by Cushman & Wakefield revealing that New
Bond Street is now the most expensive retail location in Europe
(see News, page 6) is an indication that the luxury market is still
booming and is one the New West End Company is keen to
take advantage of. This summer saw the launch of London
Luxury, a grouping together of the West End’s luxury quarter
(Bond Street, Mount Street, Jermyn Street and Savile Row).
The aim is to target high net-worth tourists from around the
world – a market spending £1.1 billion a year – by offering
bespoke tours and super-exclusive shop-and-stay experiences.
“We’re also looking at an improvement programme for
Bond Street,” says Dickinson. “On an international basis, the
inside of the shops are fantastic, but the outside isn’t
competitive with places like Milan. Clearly the southern end –
Old Bond Street, with its high-end jewellers – is fine, but as you
come further north, we need a decent retail structure for that
area and we need the property owners on side for that.
“It’s about lifting the whole ambience of the street. Can we