Urban style could salvage the retail identity of Temple Bar

Dublin's property analysts will be keeping a close eye on how Temple Bar's biggest retail outlet, Urban Outfitters, works - because the stylish megastore which opened just before Christmas might just salvage the area's reputation as the Bermuda triangle of retail opportunities.

Retail has never worked in Temple Bar. There are some units, particularly on the side streets, that have never been let at all, while others have experienced a faster than average turnover of tenants. The complaint has long been that people go to Temple Bar to party, not to shop.

Even Temple Bar Properties' own foray into retail was a dismal failure, although their idea was good. They took a large building on Temple Bar's main drag, and invited mostly new retailers to take units in it on short-term leases at reasonable rates. An interesting mix of retailers selling everything from antique stoves to lavender soap took up the opportunity in the stylish looking centre which was called Urbana.

One year later the retail experiment was over with the unit holders complaining that there was simply not enough passing trade and that the street outside only really came alive as they were pulling down their shutters at 6 p.m.

While the merchandise on some of the shelves at Urban Outfitters is very similar to the products that were sold at Urbana, the new retail outlet is a very different operation. It is part of an American chain which has a network of 37 retail outlets in all major cities across the US and Canada. In London they are in Kensington High Street. The Dublin store is the second to open outside North America.

The shops market themselves as one-stop lifestyle stores and their product range and shop style appeal mainly to 16 to 30year-olds. Such is their ubiquity in US cities that the Wall Street Journal has dubbed Urban Outfitters "Gap's evil twin".

Given the dismal retail track record of the area, the move into Temple Bar has to be a calculated gamble. The company is paying a staggered rent which will rise to £380,000 after five years for 14,000 sq ft arranged over three levels.

It has gutted the inside of Cecilia House, a period building which once housed the Catholic University School of Medicine. Inside, it's all industrial chic with metal staircases and exposed brick. One month after the shop opened for business, the Cecilia House sign is still on the building while the company grapples with the problem of figuring out a way to put their sign on a listed building facade. There is another entrance which does have the shop's sign on it situated between Fitzer's restaurant and Luigi Malones on Fownes Street.

The store has four main departments, womenswear, menswear, accessories and homewares. There's also an inhouse music store called Carbon on one of the mezzanines and a section selling second hand or "retro" clothes.

Womenswear includes Urban Outfitters' own labels Freepeople, Calme and Co-operative as well as British labels like Conscious, Sun & Sand and Born Free. In menswear there is Smedley, Duffer of St George, Mandarina Duck, Professor Head and Abahouse. There's also jewellery, accessories and funky gifts. The New York Times has defined the Urban customer as the yubbie (Young Urban Bourgeois Bohemian).

LAST May, when the deal for the property was struck and work began on the major renovations that the old building required, Hugh Wahla, acting managing director for Urban Outfitters Europe, said, "The location and site has to be right. We believe that the concept could easily travel to Dublin and be understood and received by the customer. It seems that many young people from Dublin have visited the London store and are therefore aware of what we are all about and are hungry for the product mix that we offer to be on their own doorstep".

He went on to explain "that the decision to locate in Temple Bar rather than a main retail street is part of our policy; we are not your typical high street retailers, we prefer more off-the-beaten-track locations and Temple Bar is the perfect place for a lifestyle store." If he is proved right, then his store's arrival will have prompted a major change in the entire area's reputation for retail.