Scottish shopping centre giant hails ‘massive’ transformation

The space, which has lain vacant since the collapse of Debenhams in 2021, will soon be home to a flagship outlet of Spanish fashion retailer Zara, and the second Scottish store of H Beauty, the standalone beauty concept by London department store Harrods. Zara will command the main fascia of the unit.

David Pierotti, Silverburn’s centre director who began his 40-plus year retail career with Burton and went on to work for Arcadia and Debenhams, said the redevelopment of the space will as a crucial step for the centre.

“The Debenhams cannibalisation of the big unit has been massive,” Mr Pierotti told The Herald Business HQ Monthly. “Obviously, the demise of Debenhams and several other big department stores in the UK has given landlords and places like Silverburn a real headache. Debenhams were a huge loss to the shopping centre. We are basically carving the unit into two. During the course of quarter one next year, we will have a flagship Zara.”

Speaking shortly before H Beauty was revealed as the second tenant, Mr Pierotti added: “What you will see is two iconic stores there, with Zara being the main fascia, then you will have another unit, around about 40,000 square feet. It will be a really successful UK brand.”

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Mr Pierotti was full of praise for Zara, which has performed strongly despite the tough trading conditions on the UK high streets.

He said: “Zara are one of the UK’s top-performing operators. The fit-out is happening just now. It takes about 15 weeks to fit out the full Zara. They are just going to miss Christmas, and they will hopefully open around February, March.

“They just get it right. They understand the customer and that is also something we try to do through speaking to customers [and] surveys. They get the correct product in the correct place at the right time, and I think that is what every good business tries to do. They manage their production line very well. They always have sufficient stock to be able to manage the cost associated with holding stock. Also, on the marketing side of Zara and to a certain extent Silverburn, they make their marketing pound work really hard, so they are very much on-brand. Continental Europe meets the UK. They are very on it.”

Mr Pierotti promised the new Zara outlet will be of a “similar standard” to the retailer’s store in Edinburgh’s St James Quarter. “It will be a significant unit with all their latest shop-fit, props, etc,” he said. “It is going to look amazing.”

The retail veteran was commenting towards the end of another busy year for Silverburn. Following a record year in 2023, Mr Pierotti said sales have been relatively flat on a like-for-like basis. However, total sales have risen by 26% thanks to the opening of a host of new stores.

“We are actually going through that growing pain,” Mr Pierotti said. “Not many destinations are, but we are on a real spurt of growth.”

New arrivals at Silverburn, which is owned by Eurofund Group and Henderson Park, include White Company, Rituals, Seasalt, Cinnabon and All Saints. Mr Pierotti said: “There has been a lot of things happening. The marketing team have to take a lot of credit, not me, but what we have been good at doing is tempting the customers and letting them know there is always something going on at Silverburn.

“We had a Gladiators promotion, which was right on-brand. We have farmers’ markets, we have traders’ markets, all these things, including the big one during the summer, our flamingo summer.

“We had a beach in the middle of the mall, which is a bit random, but with the weather we get in Glasgow, it was really popular, as you can imagine. More than 21,000 customers came and we raised over £46,000 for the Glasgow sick children’s hospital.”

Asked for his views on consumer sentiment as another festive season approaches, Mr Pierotti said conditions are improving “marginally”. But he cautioned: “What families are having to do, and have done for the last couple of years, is smoothing Christmas over a longer period of time. I’m talking in terms of October, November, [and] December and maybe further back.

“Families have to smooth it so they can still have the wee treats throughout the latter part of the year, taking you into what we call the ‘golden quarter’. They are looking for value. That isn’t always necessarily discounts, but looking for what is a fair price for products.

“I love a Saturday, just chatting to customers. We survey them all and they enjoy just being part of the shopping centre. That is another significant aspect of post-Covid [trading] and something we missed as human beings – just being able to go shopping instead of sitting in your bedroom buying stuff.

“I think people enjoy coming out for a coffee or going for a snack or a meal, going to the cinema.

“That is part of our leasing strategy with regards to our ten-pin bowling. We will be introducing a really considerable leisure aspect via ten-pin bowling, pool, darts, etc. All of these things will be integrated into a company called Kingpin – they will be coming here.”