Despite their proliferation in Ireland over the past two decades, shopping arcades have never achieved widespread success.
The earliest such retail concourse, the Grafton Arcade off one of Dublin's principal thoroughfares, dates to the early 1960s, but many of its sites have changed hands regularly over the intervening years; the fact that a large section of this arcade occupied by Marks & Spencer is now not used for trading does not help other retailers to attract consumers.
Other arcades have performed even more disappointingly, such as that off Abbey Street in Dublin, which was redeveloped last year as a food hall. Certainly no Irish arcade possesses the cachet enjoyed by its equivalents in other countries, among the best-known being London's Burlington Arcade or the 19th century covered passages of Paris. In fact, one of the most successful is also one of the least known: the GPO Arcade running between Henry Street and Prince's Street. This was originally created during the mid-1920s when the GPO site was rebuilt following its destruction almost 10 years earlier during the Easter Rising.
However, for more than half a century afterwards the arcade was, as Tom Kane of An Post's building division explains, "not much more and certainly little better than an alley opening on to Henry Street." Woolworth's occupied much of the site and a key retail unit at the entrance to the arcade was taken by a jeweller, but otherwise there were no shops until the late 1980s, when An Post decided to undertake a comprehensive development of its property.
This substantial capital investment has since yielded very satisfactory returns, even though there are the inevitable ongoing maintenance expenses. Contrary to widespread belief, An Post does not own the shop units occupying the ground floor of the GPO along the length of Henry Street, nor does it own all of those inside the GPO Arcade. It was only after work was completed on the site's interior that the company was able to take advantage of 10 new retail outlets covering some 12,000 square feet.
All of these are currently occupied by tenants who seem unlikely to stir. "Things have been very settled for the past 18 months," comments Mr Kane, "although at the start some people did overextend themselves and then didn't trade as well as they had expected."
While leases were originally for a period of 35 years, in line with current trends, of late they have come to be offered for 21 years. In relation to the price charged for leases, Mr Kane comments: "We take our advice from reputable estate agents in relation to what we can expect by way of rental; we're not on the same level as Henry Street." Zone A rents are on average in the region of £75 per sq ft; however, there has not been a rent review for several years and, based on comparisons with equivalent retail premises elsewhere in the capital, zone A could not be valued at £100-plus per sq ft. Among those occupying premises at the moment, he describes Specsavers as "model tenants" as are the adjacent hairdressers. Of all the retailers, he says, "they're the sort of shops that'll feed off Henry Street and do well".
Since that street is one of the busiest in the capital, the arcade naturally picks up a lot of business, not least because it is also a popular short cut for pedestrians passing to and from nearby O'Connell Street.
The arcade's principal drawback is that the other street on to which it opens, Prince's Street, has no retail outlets other than a side entrance into Penney's and is, in Tom Kane's words, "heavily trafficked". It is the route for admission to Arnott's car-park and is also used for collection and delivery of all goods to the Independent newspaper group.
However, when the latter's new printing plant opens at Citywest, that source of traffic should diminish considerably. Mr Kane expects business from consumers to grow further once work gets underway on the refurbishment of Moore Street, which enters Henry Street diagonally opposite the arcade's opening. Nonetheless, even at present the GPO Arcade shows that not all Irish arcades need be failures.
