Official Coventry Thread 4

[NewTroll]

This development is just a supermarket - the main entrance is at the top of Bishop Street (Just near where the bridge is?!??!?) and the street will be pedestrianised. At the bottom of the street, underneath the supermarket, will be units for "health/leisure" (This development will actually see a gymn get demolished as there's one in an existing building.) This is because the supermarket will be on the level, so the space underneath will be for a "leisure/health" centre.

The building will have a lot of car parking, with access from the ringroad. Tower street will be gone as it will be built over.

They want to replace the bridge over the ringroad with a pedestrian crossing.

Frontages will be just for the supermarket and its cafe at ground level.

Not impressed. It's not mixed use at all. It's all geared towards the supermarket with a little unit underneath. All frontages will be for the supermarket, and no mixed retailing at all. Supermarkets that sell similar goods to existing stores tend to wipe out the competition. Could be bad for the city centre, not good.

[NewTroll]

Originally Posted by We-Are-Borg-1987

Went into Cov today for the first time in ages- the Severn Trent building looks absolutley stunning from a distance! When you leave the train station and then cross over the footbridge over the ringroad, you get a fantastic view of the front of the Severn Trent offices. If the camera on my phone wasn't broken I would have taken a pic of it.

I think Ironmonger square looks alot better now the paving has faded a bit too.

I agree, Severn Trent (And the QCA building) is very good and welcome additions to the Skyline.

Ironmonge Square, is, however, one the most dismal, depressing public spaces on the planet. It's a truly awful place. Now do the council realise that the fucking flowerbeds were put in for a reason?

[CovAD]

Originally Posted by We-Are-Borg-1987

Went into Cov today for the first time in ages- the Severn Trent building looks absolutley stunning from a distance! When you leave the train station and then cross over the footbridge over the ringroad, you get a fantastic view of the front of the Severn Trent offices. If the camera on my phone wasn't broken I would have taken a pic of it.

Yes it does

I think Ironmonger square looks alot better now the paving has faded a bit too.

No, it doesn't

[Dr Pepper]

Originally Posted by CovAD

No, it doesn't

Yes it does.

[Dr Pepper]

Originally Posted by NewTroll

This development is just a supermarket - the main entrance is at the top of Bishop Street (Just near where the bridge is?!??!?) and the street will be pedestrianised. At the bottom of the street, underneath the supermarket, will be units for "health/leisure" (This development will actually see a gymn get demolished as there's one in an existing building.) This is because the supermarket will be on the level, so the space underneath will be for a "leisure/health" centre.

The building will have a lot of car parking, with access from the ringroad. Tower street will be gone as it will be built over.

They want to replace the bridge over the ringroad with a pedestrian crossing.

Frontages will be just for the supermarket and its cafe at ground level.

Not impressed. It's not mixed use at all. It's all geared towards the supermarket with a little unit underneath. All frontages will be for the supermarket, and no mixed retailing at all. Supermarkets that sell similar goods to existing stores tend to wipe out the competition. Could be bad for the city centre, not good.

[Fernando Partridge]

Originally Posted by Dr Pepper

Wooohoo, yet more pedestrianisation for the sake of it.

[CovAD]

Originally Posted by Dr Pepper

Yes it does.

No, it doesn't

A lot of it just looks stained and unclean. Some of the colours are so different they look like they were made from different materials altogether, as if replaced but they ran out of the originals.

[CovAD]

Originally Posted by Fernando Partridge

Wooohoo, yet more pedestrianisation for the sake of it.

Considering I'm almost at war with pedestrianisation, this bit I'm not so bothered about. I think that's the only turning on the entire ring road not directly connected to a junction and seeing as you can get to pretty much the same place from J1 it just seems odd this was the only original road connected (although the most direct route will be removed as part of this plan).

I do see people get caught out by people turning into this road thinking they're signalling to go off at J9 and having to brake hard, but ultimately that's their own fault I guess.

It will make the pedestrian crossing at lot easier too.

It'd be great if this led to more at the canal basin, but I think it'd need to be opened up more to make it more inviting so you can actually see the basin itself, which would mean removing some of the buldings to the south.

[CovAD]

Originally Posted by Dr Pepper

Looking at that is part of the Post Office nearest the ring road being taken down because the building isn't shaped like that.

I assume this part of the design is based on following the city wall?

[Scazmattaz]

Epic fail on the at-grade pedestrian crossing front. Thats not gonna get through any traffic modelling exercises as its obvious its gonna mess up capacity instantly.

Personally I like the design and concept. Car park around the edge of the Ring Road is what we wanted and a Supermarket for the City Centre would be great, I used to drive out to Sainsburys at Canley.

Im guessing by the size its either Sainsburys (with closure of the Trinity Street store), Tesco's or ASDA. Morrisons store is too close by for them to be interested and format too large for anyone else.

[CovAD]

Originally Posted by Scazmattaz

Epic fail on the at-grade pedestrian crossing front. Thats not gonna get through any traffic modelling exercises as its obvious its gonna mess up capacity instantly.

Personally I like the design and concept. Car park around the edge of the Ring Road is what we wanted and a Supermarket for the City Centre would be great, I used to drive out to Sainsburys at Canley.

Im guessing by the size its either Sainsburys (with closure of the Trinity Street store), Tesco's or ASDA. Morrisons store is too close by for them to be interested and format too large for anyone else.

But that's the problem - if every solution to breaching the ring road is rejected because of the problems it causes with the ring road, we never loosen it's stranglehold and it continues to dominate, when it's the very thing causing all the problems because it's too small.

We can have pedestrian crossings along the A45 - the main bypass of Coventry but we can't have them on the less important ring road

[NewTroll]

This plan is totally bizarre, especially with its main entrance on the ringroad! Edge of centre supermarkets are no different to suburban ones, anyway. This one is sort of half edge of centre, half centre.

If you read the documents, they seem to imply that the customers will be mainly people who'd normally use a suburban supermarkets (There's not enough city centre residents). They also say that people won't walk from the "traditional" shopping centre to buy comparison goods, yet claim that footfall will help the surrounding areas. I doubt people doing a "bulk shop" will walk to it anyway. So where is this footfall coming from?

Surely people will just drive to it, park up, do their shop and then go.

As it's got a build in cafe, if they do fancy a coffee, it's all at hand. No need to even leave.

Surely the only way the city centre could benefit is if this was actually part of the main retail area? Won't this just be the same as IKEA - people will drive to it, use it, and then leave. It's in effect an out-of-town shop in the city centre, except with its own car park on top, so it doesn't even have to share retail space with ANYONE. Great for the supermarket!

I'd be surprised if Sainsbury's moves. They've been offered new sites in the past and refused. I think they know they're onto a winner being directly next to the bus station!

This is really no different to an out of town store - it's just "edge of centre", and it's also in the middle of the city's poorest ward (And least populated as well.)

My main problem is that this brings nothing to the city centre that it doesn't already have, doesn't bring anything to Coventry that will help bring people in, doesn't do anything really apart from bring more cash into the supermarket's coffers.

If these things are so great are bringing more business into areas, then why is Trinity street lined with empty shops? Supermarkets tend to remove businesses by undercutting them.

I wouldn't mind, but they present documents that make it sound as if this is going to be a huge boost to the city centre... when that's highly debatable IMHO.

They haven't even got anyone lined up for it.

For sale: large supermarket unit just off worst ring road in the UK, in the middle of the poorest ward in Coventry, in a city centre with very few permanent residents & not a lot of office workers nearby. Lots of empty land with planning permission. Nearest residents cut off by dual carriageway. Bus station close, but not accessible by zimmer frame. Has own car park, cafe and gym.

[NewTroll]

Originally Posted by Scazmattaz

Epic fail on the at-grade pedestrian crossing front. Thats not gonna get through any traffic modelling exercises as its obvious its gonna mess up capacity instantly.

Personally I like the design and concept. Car park around the edge of the Ring Road is what we wanted and a Supermarket for the City Centre would be great, I used to drive out to Sainsburys at Canley.

Im guessing by the size its either Sainsburys (with closure of the Trinity Street store), Tesco's or ASDA. Morrisons store is too close by for them to be interested and format too large for anyone else.

Coventry's always had car parks around the ringroad. It's that now they're bigger and emptier.

ASDA would be my bet. Sainbury's won't want to leave Trinity Street, TESCO have more than enough megastores, and ASDA are right for the demographics of the area.

[Dr Pepper]

Originally Posted by CovAD

No, it doesn't

Oh yes it.......never mind.

[We-Are-Borg-1987]

Maybe Adsa I think. Tesco is expanding at Cannon Park (and the design there looks similiar to this building actually if you look at the jagged part facing the ring road) and has the store at the Ricoh- maybe the catchment areas would clash. So maybe Asda. I think its in such a difficult area to attract significant footfall a supermarket may be appropriate. Newtroll, I completely agree that people will only shop then leave. But I think that area of the city centre has inherent issues- people from the Canal Basin, Radford etc walk through it but apart from that its virtually dead. Its just too far from the main shopping area to attract anything good. If it is an Asda it may attract students who currently go to Sainsburys and maybe some office workers from Axa at lunchtime etc. I think only a supermarket would be a good anchor store at this time (unfortunatly) with inflation etc going up retail generally is taking a massive hit but supermarkets (at least the cheap ones anyway) are almost reccession-proof.

With inflation, unemployment, higher taxes and the wild card of oil prices (not to mention the internet) I think retail will have a really hard time and Jerde will be re-done so its less retail focused. But if Jerde includes offcie space, it would compete with Friargate so maybe Jerde will be scrapped in favour of a cheap spruce-up of the precinct instead.

[CovAD]

Originally Posted by NewTroll

This plan is totally bizarre, especially with its main entrance on the ringroad! Edge of centre supermarkets are no different to suburban ones, anyway. This one is sort of half edge of centre, half centre.

If you read the documents, they seem to imply that the customers will be mainly people who'd normally use a suburban supermarkets (There's not enough city centre residents). They also say that people won't walk from the "traditional" shopping centre to buy comparison goods, yet claim that footfall will help the surrounding areas. I doubt people doing a "bulk shop" will walk to it anyway. So where is this footfall coming from?

Surely people will just drive to it, park up, do their shop and then go.

As it's got a build in cafe, if they do fancy a coffee, it's all at hand. No need to even leave.

Surely the only way the city centre could benefit is if this was actually part of the main retail area? Won't this just be the same as IKEA - people will drive to it, use it, and then leave. It's in effect an out-of-town shop in the city centre, except with its own car park on top, so it doesn't even have to share retail space with ANYONE. Great for the supermarket!

I'd be surprised if Sainsbury's moves. They've been offered new sites in the past and refused. I think they know they're onto a winner being directly next to the bus station!

This is really no different to an out of town store - it's just "edge of centre", and it's also in the middle of the city's poorest ward (And least populated as well.)

My main problem is that this brings nothing to the city centre that it doesn't already have, doesn't bring anything to Coventry that will help bring people in, doesn't do anything really apart from bring more cash into the supermarket's coffers.

If these things are so great are bringing more business into areas, then why is Trinity street lined with empty shops? Supermarkets tend to remove businesses by undercutting them.

I wouldn't mind, but they present documents that make it sound as if this is going to be a huge boost to the city centre... when that's highly debatable IMHO.

They haven't even got anyone lined up for it.

For sale: large supermarket unit just off worst ring road in the UK, in the middle of the poorest ward in Coventry, in a city centre with very few permanent residents & not a lot of office workers nearby. Lots of empty land with planning permission. Nearest residents cut off by dual carriageway. Bus station close, but not accessible by zimmer frame. Has own car park, cafe and gym.

I think it's obvious the 'main' entrance will be the one from the car park into the store. The other two are secondary entrances - one for those living on the other side of the ring road and one just in case someone from the city centre or AXA decide to pop in. Maybe they want the level crossing so residents can wheel trolleys over the ring road - expect a LOT of trolleys in the canal basin after opening!

It's so annoying that I'm calling for fewer out of centre retail parks and the two so far that have come in are IKEA and a big supermarket (whcih arguably suit such destinations) when I meant more along the lines of the JD Sports, TK Maxx's etc.

I've got reservations about whether this will have a negative or positive overall impact on other businesses, but frankly at this point in time I don't think Coventry is really in a position to turn a major scheme down - the area has been desperate for investment for 10-15 years or more and very little has offered to take it on, although you do wonder why they didn't ask for permission on the other side of Bishops St at an earlier date when the postal hub was open as they'd have had more potential customers then.

[skybluecity]

Originally Posted by Dr Pepper

Oh yes it.......never mind.

I agree Dr P. No issues with the paving at all. Quite like it actually. The mixed colouring works for me.

[skybluecity]

I've looked at the details of the Bishop´s Street proposal and I fail to see how anyone can draw any meaningful conclusions. It is an outline application anyway, they never tell us a huge amount. I'm staggered that some are objecting to the idea of a ring-road frontage - no what we really want are blank walls and service areas eh?

Delighted with this development. I assumed this area would remain an eyesore for years to come, so the fact that there is a development of this scale in the pipeline is tremendous. Supermarket for the city centre - great. A good addition.

[skybluecity]

Originally Posted by NewTroll

Where do you think the demand is from, though? Surely with Tripadvisor, people are looking for somewhere that they WANT to go to already (I use it!). How many people want to come to Coventry? (Apart from Poundland.) and why are they coming here? Do their reasons mean that a fancy Radisson would be their destination of choice?

Business trip? There are few businesses in the centre and this stuff tends to be done one a shoestring these days - and people prefer to be near the business the are visiting (We use the 4 local hotels to our office). Tourism? No chance, Coventry's dwindling tourist industry was pretty much based around coach stops at the Cathedral. It's never been a stopover spot, and doesn't attract the "stag" weekend business either. Foreigners head to Stratford or Warwick Theatre trip? The Belgrade is a great little provincial theatre, but that's it, it has nothing special that warrants a coach trip. Conference? Why? The Ricoh Arena and the NEC have that market sewn up, as does Warwick University (Have you seen how huge its conferencing facilities are? I'm talking about proper academic conferences here, not the sort of stuff you get at the Ricoh where people are trying flog cheap timeshare in Spain - the company I work for actually uses the Ricoh for a venue when they put on customer events.)

Occupancy rates in Coventry hotels are actually quite high. Couldn't get my friends booked in the Ramada last October as they were fully booked.

A huge amount of business is done in and around Coventry, but you already know that surely? Started a new job recently and guess where the national training course was being held - here, for no other reason than it's a central location and despite the fact the company is based in Swindon. Birmingham Aiport - is closer to Coventry City Centre than Birmingham, so too the NEC. There is plenty of demand for Coventry hotels, hence the reason why they keep building them I guess.

Simple economics anyway. Supply and demand. There are consultantcies in the hotel industry who charge a fortune for feasibility and site studies, and if they are telling developers and hotel groups there is demand then I guess that there probably is.

[morestoreysplease]

I agree with the above. What Coventry needs to do is to advertise itself (and it already does) more and more as a destination for NEC visitors, stating it's in Warwickshire, also home to Warwick and Stratford. Why shouldn't visitors wanting to see the Bard's home town not want to stay at a larger hotel based in Coventry. Some Cov forumers constantly do their city down - it's time to change the record. I'm proud of what Brum, the Black Country and Coventry offer as an option to the traditional tourist local hotspots.

Edit - the Sky Blue city needs to adopt some blue sky thinking!!