Update: Looks like it had a very grand opening too.

I paid a visit to the new shopping centre in Cambridge today. The Grand Arcade. And it is indeed grand.

The centre opened a couple of weeks ago and our man on the scene was Nick Flynn. He sent this report:

“Grand arcade. It lives up to the name. Very grand. Lots of jewellery shops, a big apple store and all the usual big names. Too big to explore in one afternoon.” (Text link)

Andrew Smith also got early access and agreed with Nick:

“It’s so grand. Got loads of shops in there”

So when today I arrived in Cambridge I was naturally excited about exploring the new development. It is indeed very nice looking inside. It’s airy. The shopping “streets” feel lavishly wide. The stone-wood design combo iterated all over the complex is subtle and refined. It looks like a place where goods would be expensive. Of course they’re not - the shops in the centre are the normal ones you’d get anywhere else with the same prices. But the setting feels premium.

Before going to the Grand Arcade I checked out their website to see what shops I could find where. I was looking at their site trying to find a floor plan but I couldn’t find one. The best you can get is a blueprint style plan with unit numbers but not the names of the shops that are there. This struck me as profoundly weird. The only other two shopping centres that I’m familiar with both have prominent centre maps on their websites. So why is this missing from the Grand Arcade site?

The answer is that the Grand Arcade is currently only just over half full. Upon entering you are struck by many empty units there are - particularly on the opening stretch of the centre leading off St Andrews Street. These units have large boards covering them that say “Unit Available”. A careful scouring of the shopping centre uncovers that some (two or three) units actually have a “Shop X Coming Soon” written on but the rest seem to still be for sale. To me this implies that the “Available” units are currently unsold. What an embarassment this is!

According to Grand Arcade themselves they have 52 retail units. But only just over 30 actual shops. They’ve built the shopping centre but people don’t want to buy up the units! Now I’m sure in the coming months the Grand Arcade will fill up. And maybe there are empty units at the moment only because they are subject to intense bidding wars by several companies but it seems more likely that companies simply haven’t come forward yet wanting to move into the centre.

To me this problem has developed from the increasingly apparent fact that Cambridge has enough shops. But I hate shopping.