Alex Woolf Podcast transcript
Nick: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Concilio Better Places podcast, where I'm delighted to say I'm joined today by Alex Wolf, chief Operating Officer of Romulus. And we're here to discuss the transformation from Center Court in Merton to the Wimbledon Quarter. Uh, talk about the latest retail trends, uh, and how Alex and the Romulus team have repositioned the shopping center.
Um, first Alex, maybe a little bit of introduction about yourself and Romulus.
Alex: Yeah, absolutely. So, um, yeah, I'm Alex. Um, uh, RO is a family business. We've been around for about 50 years, um, based in southwest London. We've got a team now of about 70 people. Mm-hmm. Um, we look after about a million square foot of commercial space, um, mainly in London.
Nick: Mm-hmm. Fantastic. Now, Romulus acquired the Center Court Shopping Center in 2021. Um, probably at a time when most people weren't investing in shopping centers. They were kinda seen as last year's news. Um, what potential did Romulus see in the property that others missed? Um, especially at [00:01:00] times, as they said, when a lot of people were quite pessimistic about retail's chances.
So I think the first
Alex: thing I'd say is that, um, it was, it's an exceptionally well located site.
Yeah.
Alex: Um, right in the heart of Wimbledon, um, right on top of the train station, um, which has great connection to London. So the location was very good. And not only that, the location benefits from a really, really strong catchment.
Yeah. So we felt that regardless of what. Happened to the center. It was always underpinned by this very affluent, local demographic, and we felt that what had been there previously probably didn't play to that as well as it could. I would also say that, um, there were a few, a few other things that made it interesting was it was the real ability to be able to make changes in the way that we thought was suitable.
Mm-hmm. So it was a freehold site. Um, it had very, very good and extensive frontage externally. Yes, yes. So a lot of kind of shopping centers often a kind of subsumed within, they're inward looking, aren't they, rather than outward looking. Um, and this one was inward looking Yeah. But it was inward looking, but had the blank frontages.
Mm-hmm. [00:02:00] And we'll get into it later, but the ability to be able to open things up again. Was very possible. And then I think the last thing I'd say is that we were probably a bit unique in our approach and actually the things that put a lot of people off we really liked. Mm-hmm. So it was in this strange transition where it was not well occupied enough to be of any interest to institutional investors.
It was, you know, over half vacant, but it had enough occupancy to also really put off anyone who wanted to demolish the entire center. You had lots of long inside the at leases in the parts of the center that still worked, but actually we really liked that. Because we wanted to keep the bits that worked and change the bits that didn't.
And we were happy. We were happy using our platform to kind of work around existing tenants and reposition things and. We really liked the fact that, you know, frankly wouldn't be able to afford that've been fully left and trading really well. Mm-hmm. And we probably wouldn't be able to afford it, frankly, if it was also completely vacant at the same time.
So it sat in this strange middle zone that puts off a lot of people.
Nick: So you inherited is an empty Debs, or what was it? Debs? So there was a, yeah, there was an anchor [00:03:00] store at the end. So a third of the building, is that probably accurate, was empty.
Alex: Yeah. Just over a third. Yeah. So there was, uh, about 110,000 square foot empty Devons who left.
Before the pandemic. So they left in, uh, 2019. Mm-hmm. And as soon as they left, then you started to see the kind of occupancy of the center really begin to fall off. So you had, it must have been a major driver of footfall, I assume, with Devlin, so without that, yeah. So foot, foot, yeah. Footfall was about 9 million, maybe just over that.
Mm-hmm. Before Debenhams left, Debenhams then left and you saw what was essentially then the back of the center around an old atrium. Become very vacant and nearly everybody starts to leave the upper levels of the center. And so you had this real drop off and then obviously. Hit by Covid in 2020. Yeah.
Which exacerbated,
Nick: so did you purchase this during Covid or It was during the time? During, during Covid. Yeah. Um,
Alex: yeah. Uh, we, we actually were, it was, it was kind of in between various lockdowns. It was March, um, 2021 when we actually purchased the center. So [00:04:00] it was going through, yeah, those, those bits at the time.
Nick: Obviously during Covid there, there was a sense that, you know, the world has changed. Mm-hmm. And certainly we all grew very used to online shopping even more so than perhaps was the trend before. And also online food deliveries, uh, and so on. So again, being the owner of a bricks and mortar retail hub, I.
Again, it, it must have been, oh, you must have fought when, um, looking
Alex: at the numbers, so, yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's no doubt that the pandemic made things a lot harder. Yeah. It was frankly harder to even just go and see the space when various lockdowns Yeah. Happened and go and go around it. And you're right.
You know, there were definitely. Concerning headwinds about, mm-hmm. About, about retail and your, you know, delivery was booming. You had saw all of those, those companies share prices go absolutely mad during that period of time. And obviously retail bricks and mortar start was, was going the other way.
There were some exceptions to that though, that we were beginning to see even at the time, which were quite interesting. So we were hearing interesting anecdotes of. Cafes in Wimbledon, which wa which had been shut for half of [00:05:00] 2020. Mm-hmm. But had made more money in the halves that they were open Right.
During the breaks in lockdown than they would make in a normal full year. Mm-hmm. Because you had all these people who were working from home able to go out wanting to find places to go to, to buy a coffee, to have Yep. Local pastries to do stuff locally. And so we're beginning to hear these interesting anecdotes, um, about.
These kind of local spaces mm-hmm. That were doing unusually well, that weren't just tech based. Yeah. That had an interesting demographic slant to that.
Mm-hmm.
Alex: And that became, becomes a big part, which I think we'll probably get into later.
Nick: Yeah. So once you, once you acquired the center, what was your initial overall vision that you wanted to achieve here?
Alex: So, the initial overall vision hasn't actually really changed since we started. Mm-hmm. Um, the, the overall, taking a huge step back to the highest possible level, we felt that. The space clearly no longer worked as a regional shopping center, and for Wimbledon to [00:06:00] compete with Kingston and Putney High Street and South Side and other large London retail destinations just wasn't working with or without the pandemic.
Frankly, with or without Debenhams, it didn't have enough point of difference. Mm-hmm. But as I touched on earlier, you have this amazing demographic base in Wimbledon, and so our vision was to think about changing the center's focus. Away from, let's be a regional shopping center towards let's be a locally focused center.
Mm-hmm. And let's provide things that local people want. So that's the kind of bigger picture approach. Yeah. And then as we kind of begin to unpack what that means, that meant for us trying to think, trying to understand how we make the ground floor retail work again.
Mm-hmm.
Alex: So, um, opening up the center, making it feel part of the town center.
The F and B in the center used to be up on the second floor. Bizarrely? Yes. Up with the, up with the lu. Mm-hmm. And so a big part of that was both bringing the Lus down, but also looking to bring the cafes and [00:07:00] restaurants down to ground floor and using them to help reinvigorate the retail at ground level.
The, the big issue though was at the first floor where retail was really not working and frankly doesn't work at all. You know, a situation where. Business rates were, you know, four times our RVs up there. Mm-hmm. So it was just, it was, IM impossible to ever rent it as a retail, even if we'd put zero on it.
Yeah. And so there was about, thinking back to that. Perspective of we need to bring in uses that local people want, and then thinking about what local people might want. So thinking about leisure, thinking about local workspace, thinking about private medical health. Mm-hmm. Wellbeing uses and putting together and beginning to curate a mixture at that first floor level.
Yeah. That actually adds a local destination element that then supports the retail. And then the idea of being all these uses, uh, mutually reinforcing.
Nick: So as part of this process, you started the journey of rebranding. Yes. Yes. Um, what was Center Court to Windward and quarter? Um, it's quite a shift in identity.
It looks [00:08:00] fantastic. Can you talk us through to thinking about the name change and the overall rebounding strategy? Was that as a almost a, do you need to, it's bit chicken and egg. What, what came first, the rebrand? Uh, and that attracted tenants or a tenants and then thinking, right, we've got something special on our hands here.
We can, we can look to rebrand.
Alex: So, yeah, I mean, brand and marketing is actually what I did for, um, five or six years. Yeah. Um, prior to moving into real estate. And one of the things that is, you know, normally key to doing a good rebrand is it needs to align with your strategy. Yeah. And if you're not trying to do the things your brand is saying, it doesn't work.
And so the, the whole idea behind moving away from center court shopping center. Two, a new brand was trying to reflect the fact that the center was changing from being a regional shopping center. Yeah. To being this local neighborhood orientated hub and making it feel part of the town center.
Yeah.
Alex: I should mention couple to that too.
Unfortunately, calling a shopping center, center court, shopping center when you are right next to Wimbledon Center Court. Yeah. Is challenging. I, you know, we sometimes be in there during the tennis, which must
Nick: be [00:09:00] in an hour. If you could sort that to be that. Yeah.
Alex: SEO is very difficult. Yeah. Any IP you can't possibly ever own course.
Um, and it's causing, you can see the initial logic, but then actually some confusion. You'd have some people in there during the tennis who'd be looking for the tennis, and it's actually 20 minutes down the road. But, but fun. But actually the more fundamental reason, as I was saying, it was about trying to align our strategy with the brand.
Mm-hmm. And we want to make. It not be a shopping center anymore and not feel like it's a shopping center, but be this local neighborhood space where you can shop, but also do a whole range of other local activities like workout, eat, and drink, and making it feel like it is a part of the town center or a quarter of the town center.
And that's, so that's where the idea came from. And we had a number of workshops with a range of local residents Yep. And local businesses to try and take them on our journey and kind of get their view as well. Because if the center doesn't work for people locally mm-hmm. It's not gonna work.
Particularly if our strategy is to get local people to come here more often. Of course, of course. So their key to everything
Nick: did. What did you [00:10:00] find when you were doing that research, independence and bigger chains? Was the kind of feedback or, or not what, what, what were people telling you they wanted to see at Vicenta?
Alex: So yeah, we had a lot of very strong opinions and actually very helpful opinions from people locally. People definitely wanted to still shop locally.
Yeah.
Alex: Um, and that's still one of the things we, we hear today and one of the things that's, is a key part of what's still and hopefully about to come through in the next few months in terms of a whole series of new, new shops.
Yeah. It has been particularly challenging for the reasons you've touched on, but, you know, retail headwinds are more positive now. Um, we also heard yet more independence, and that was part of our strategy as well. Was, we didn't want to compete with the existing, actually very successful High Street in Wimbledon.
Mm-hmm. We wanted to compliment it. And Wimbledon High Street is very, very busy. Very, very narrow. Lots of chain, lots of chains. Yep. And what we wanted to do in Wimbledon quarter is to compliment that by creating spaces that actually have a bit more space. We had some really nice, big internal areas that people can kind of [00:11:00] sit and relax in.
We had some really nice external areas on Queens Road. There's a kind of perpendicular street old civic center of Wimbledon. Mm-hmm. The old fire station. The Old Baptist church. The old magistrates court. Yep. Um, all sit along that street and they were closed off when you purchased Complete. Complete, yeah.
Completely closed off. Yes. You had storage areas for shops. You had complete back of house areas. Mm-hmm. And we wanted to bring them back to life again. Have outside seating and create a space that sits alongside the town center. And as you know, we really see Wimbledon Court as part of. Wimbledon Town Center.
Yeah. Not an enclosed separate space. Mm-hmm. And our strategy that we've been working through and what we're continuing to do over the next few years is looking to deliver that. So as
Nick: well as bringing kind of more independent local Yeah. Brands, which you can certainly see, uh, would appeal to the Wimbledon demographic.
You've got some exciting new tenants, like Third Space. Yes. Becoming part of Jim Walden, I believe it's called now, is there's a lot of gyms in the area, lot of gyms, um, climbing, uh, facilities for little gym, uh, as well as your [00:12:00] own, um, uh, office space huddle. Is that all about? Because much as you said, it's part of the high street, you do need to make it distinct and increase for dwell time, I assume, within mm-hmm.
Descenter. So is this kind of multi-use strategy something that you recognized right at the start you needed to do just to, in order to get that footfall back up to where it once was?
Alex: Yes.
Nick: It was kind of the,
Alex: I guess it was kind of the. Third pillar of our strategy. Mm-hmm. The first was doing some placemaking to make it a nicer place again.
Yeah. 'cause it just had been under invested in for mm-hmm. About a decade. And so, you know, we put this new courtyard and put this sliding roof on, opened things up to the center. Um, and then the tenant mix came next. And the tenant mix was all about bringing in this bigger range of uses to support the retail.
Mm-hmm. Um, particularly at the first floor. And yeah, it was about creating the right mix. So. You know, we recognized there was an opportunity in leisure.
Mm-hmm.
Alex: And we wanted, but we didn't want to just bring in a whole bunch of gyms. We wanted to bring in a mixture again, of leisure opportunities [00:13:00] that both compliment each other, but also actually that.
Um, appeal to the wide demographic of Wimbledon. Mm-hmm. So third space was about generally appealing to the younger professional. Yeah. And then we had boardroom climbing, which is actually a slightly younger target market mm-hmm. Of people who want to, you're looking to climb. Yeah. Particularly in the, the winter when it's cold outside.
Um, golf groove was slightly older. Mm-hmm. Demographic as well. Um, we've also brought in a little gym, which is a kind of kids, um, gymnastics class. Right. Um, as well as strong Pilates as a Pilates studio. Mm-hmm. Um, they actually came in on the back of the fact that the third space Pilates, um, classes basically sell out as fast as glass bury tickets go mad.
Brilliant. Um, given the popularity of that. Yeah. Yeah. But it's really creating a mix both within the kind of leisure category of leisure uses that work mm-hmm. But also within the center of a, as a whole of uses that, that work together. And, and third space, as you correctly point out, has, has been a particularly important one for us.
Yeah. Um, because it's such a large [00:14:00] facility, because they invested so much money in it, because it brings over one and a half thousand people a day Wow. Into Wimbledon quarter.
Mm-hmm.
Alex: And really based on where we started those, that's a hundred thousand net new people. Yeah. Those people weren't really already coming into the center.
Nick: And when you were looking to then let the retail space, which you still have, I presume, these footfall numbers and the demographic must be. Make it an incredible draw for you in terms of attracting tenants now?
Alex: It definitely does and it's definitely improved. Um, we, you know, third Space has definitely brought along others footfall numbers have increased significantly.
Yeah. So we're back up now at just over 7 million a year. We, we broke 7 million last year. Yeah. We think will be somewhere between eight and eight and a half this year. Mm-hmm. Our numbers are still rising. Yeah. And we, you know, we expect within a couple of years time we should be at hopefully record levels within the center.
Fantastic. Because. As you were rightly pointing out within Wimbledon as a whole, footfall in Wimbledon is actually at record levels all time currently. Yeah. Um, the footfall counters that the business investment district have on the, on the High [00:15:00] Street Show. Record levels. Um, and that actually similarly is feeding through to spend too, which is really interesting.
Nick: When it comes to the, uh, new occupiers of center court, I guess one of the easier decisions in some respects must have been to bring your own office space brand in huddle. But clearly you wouldn't have done that if you didn't feel that the, the rights, um, kind of market was there for it. So what made you think, uh, kind of an office provision where previously there was none, uh, would actually work at this location?
Alex: Yeah, that's a good question. So it really came down to, actually, one of the things we observed when Third Space First opened mm-hmm. Is that their, their customers were in, in their words, misusing the space quite heavily. So post Covid, you had a lot of people using the gym and you still do actually.
Mm-hmm. Um. During quite odd hours. So, you know, you'll go in on a Tuesday and the gym will actually be quite busy at 11:00 AM
Right.
Alex: And people will have done a workout and then will then sit in the massage chairs.
Mm-hmm.
Alex: Taking teams calls and it became pretty clear that there was an [00:16:00] appetite for spaces to work near home when people are working two to three days a week from home And from an employer perspective, just putting the shoe on the other foot for a second.
Mm-hmm. They probably would rather those people working in a proper office space with fast internet, rather than taking their teams call from a massage chair in Fit Space. I'm picturing some of my team at the moment, I'm wondering why they look distracted. Perhaps that might be why. So, yeah, when we started huddle, actually in the space we're sitting in now, yeah.
Um, about seven years ago, as you know, one of those many co-working spaces that emerged, frankly, on the back of WeWork. Yep. Um, when we were looking at launching in Wimbledon, though, we recognized that it need, Wimbledon needed a different model of, of workspace to what we've done here in Hammersmith because it's a much more local.
Area and much more community orientated and there's fewer large corporates. Yeah. And so the whole model when we launched in Wimbledon is much more locally led and hospitality led. Mm-hmm. So there's a, there's a standalone independent cafe at ground floor, which is kind of where we have our most [00:17:00] flexible memberships, where you can really come in, have a coffee and work for a few hours.
Mm-hmm. It's then a lot more flexible, membership orientated too. So we have a much larger, as a proportion of the total space coworking area. Where freelancers and small startups can work in a collaborative environment, um, a much larger portion of a coworking space than you'd normally see.
Mm-hmm.
Alex: And then we have some really nice small, private offices, um, that sit within what used to be the old fire station for businesses of, you know, two people up to about 30 people.
Mm-hmm. And what we've seen in Wimbledon actually is that of all the three centers that we've opened, it was the fastest one ever. We opened essentially a hundred percent full Wow. On day one because there was a, in Wimbledon as a whole. Although it does have office space and some quite good office space, the flexible workspace provision in particular is very poor and there was no really, really good local space.
Mm-hmm. And with the shifts around where people want to work, people actually like starting and opening and growing small businesses. Yeah. In their local area with good transport connections. Mm-hmm. And they want a space for their [00:18:00] team of 2, 5, 10, 15 people to work from. Mm-hmm. And having a third space gym next door, a golf center people can go to after work, restaurants and cafes actually creates an amazing immunity offer.
Mm-hmm. And a far better immunity offer than you get in a big corporate building in central London. Yeah. So we've had this kind of unique value proposition we've been able to pull together and it's been. Been great.
Nick: So do you, is it kind of entrepreneurs, um, setting up businesses or is it people who are working from home but don't actually want to work from home and want to work, you know, five minutes walk away?
What's the kind of mix? The answer is, it's
Alex: both. Yeah. Um, it's the, the larger business, we, as we, the larger businesses that we have, um, the kind of like 20 to 30 mm-hmm. Are businesses where people live locally and want to bring their team in and they're fast growing. But the, the kind of flexible co-working is much more people who want to come in for a few days a week.
Mm-hmm. We found that our kind of five, 10, and 15 day a month co-working memberships have been really, really popular. Far more so than they are in
Nick: That's interesting one to fix. Okay. I didn't know that was an offer. 'cause [00:19:00] most, it's monthly for x pounds, but you are offering 5, 10, 15. We've
Alex: offered, even we've, we've, we've kind of extended the range of our offering.
On the flexible scale towards even more flex, even more flexibility in Wimbledon. And I've seen a lot of, a lot of traction there. But we've also seen a lot of demand for people who want a nice small office in a, in a nice space. Well, located near the station with Great Am Amens
Nick: brilliant. So in terms of.
Sustainability, which is a kind of word. A lot of developers we talk to, like to use. And sometimes I do wonder, you know, a walking the walk and talk a talk are two separate things. But there can't be many shopping centers with rooftop farms, uh, on them, where microgreens, herbs, seasonal vegetables and mushrooms are grown as well as bees.
And I'm lucky enough to have a, a jar after honey, which has been produced from the, from the rooftop. Um. Uh, w why, what, what made you go down that route of, of kind of a circular economy Yeah. Approach to things that you're taking at. So it sounds a bit mad, um, when you say that. Um,
Alex: but it really again, goes back to what [00:20:00] our overall approach with mm-hmm.
The center is, which is about making it something that is a local community space. And the idea is it is a local community farm mm-hmm. That has a local story and engages local people. Um, the idea came out of, you know, some of those strange kind of lockdown moments we all had when we probably had a little bit too much time on our hands, not enough time socializing with other people, where I was trying to think about ways that we could use some of the waste products produced by our buildings productively.
And it turns out that use coffee grounds, which obviously produced by all our cafes and workspaces. Are the perfect substrate for growing oyster mushrooms on. And so we started as only a small mushroom farm on the roof. Yep. And it's expanded since to include, as you point out, other kitchen guards and pro garden produce.
We do regular tours and events throughout the year. The tours are some of the most popular things that we do. I bet. Um, within the center, um, we have always looked to try and make it about this local story, both for local people and [00:21:00] for local businesses. So we collect used coffee grounds from a range of local cafes.
Yeah. And then for the last few years we've been selling all of our produce to local restaurants.
Yeah.
Alex: Although there's been a bit of a shift recently where we have just literally just launched looking to sell local subscription food boxes to people through our cafe. So as part of our co-working space, we've got a cafe on, mm-hmm.
On Queens Road. And we started selling local food boxes as part of that, through that piece. But it's really all about engaging local people within a, in a community use. And tying into that overall strategy and overall experience of. This isn't just a dropped in regional shopping center with a whole bunch of global change, but this is a local neighborhood space that feels like a Wimbledon Center.
And actually, if you were gonna do another part of London, it would look very different because it's not in Wimbledon.
Nick: But A, as we mentioned, Wimbledon has performed especially well post pandemic when compared to a lot of other places in London. It does have. A local feel where local people want to go. Um, I guess which must have [00:22:00] benefited, um, Wimbledon quarter, but what is it you think that makes it, um, Wimbledon so unique that local people are shopping here?
Because it isn't happening in a lot of places across London. We are seeing, you know, footfall declining in shopping centers and town centers.
Alex: Yeah. I think there's a few things. I think Wimbledon has this amazing local identity, which is mm-hmm. One of the kind of soft measures that is easy to forget but is relevant where it's.
You know, has a local feel that is uniquely Wimbledon and not just part of London. I think some of the cultural things that exist in wi part of that with the theater has the only kids theater in the, in the country as well with the poker theater or maybe one of only two. Yeah. So has some amazing, you know, as well as the sports, you know, the local sports teams, et cetera, has a really strong local sense of identity.
But the other thing I'd say is that the, the, the kind of demographic base that you have in Wimbledon. Um, of actually quite, actually, quite a young mm-hmm. A young demographic base as well is, is, is uniquely strong. And the things I was talking about earlier of the kind of, you know, coffee shop that in six months of trading does better than the whole year during [00:23:00] lockdowns has, has emerged as a post covid trend.
Mm-hmm. Um, within places like Wimbledon, but I think Wimbledon is probably one of the most. Kind of extreme examples of that, which is that people aren't going to offices five days a week anymore on average. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And you know, you know, during the pandemic it was obviously all at home. Mm-hmm. Um, and prior it was majority in the office.
But we've kind of entered this kind of new between state now where a lot of people seem to have reached a stage where they go into the office two to three days a week and they work from or near home for two to three days a week. And what that's meant is that about a third of the weekly spend. And weekly time mm-hmm.
That people have in their lives instead of spending it in the West end and the city.
Yeah.
Alex: They're spending it in their local area or in this case in Wimbledon.
Mm-hmm.
Alex: And so that, you know, we're seeing that in the footfall numbers I mentioned, um, that, that the bid have. And we also managed to, in partnership with MER council, get some, some actual spend data from MasterCard.
Mm-hmm. And again, that, that actually shows even more so the footfall, that there's more spend in Wimbledon than ever. [00:24:00] Um, and we're seeing that come through in our numbers in the center as well.
Nick: Yeah. So even though people are staying at home, want, certainly our business is three days in the office, two days at home, and I can't see that changing.
Mm-hmm. Um, anytime soon. I think it's for the better in many respects, but. Come back in re um, retail and shops do have to compete with the internet, uh, and home deliveries, uh, increasingly, I mean, you can't move from moped drivers around where I live, dropping off fast food at people's, people's houses. So, you know, the coffee shops it do actually have to compete with those guys.
Um, if you were looking to kind of apply any lessons that you've learned to a future shopping center, um, proposal, do you think this is the main challenge, is that competition with online? So, I. I actually don't
Alex: think it is. Mm-hmm. Because I think for quite a, for the last kind of decade or so, the way that the online versus traditional offline retailers work is they, they've kind of been set up as opposing camps.
Yes. And um, there's kind of been, you know, Amazon and a os [00:25:00] and. Boohoo or whatever emerge and they take share away from Debenhams and John Lewis and the traditional incumbents and that, and that is what's happened. But actually, I think that what's happened in the last few years is there's been a realization that actually neither of those models work.
Right. The kind of old Debenhams work models failed. Yeah. But actually these online shopping models are also failing. Mm-hmm. That the, the costs of delivery and return are absolutely mad. Mm-hmm. And really the, the retailers that are making things work successfully. Mm-hmm. Generally speaking are finding an interesting model that bridges both and they're not viewing bricks and mortar and online as separate, but actually part of a coherent strategy.
Yeah. Where you perhaps go into store and you experience a product that you then maybe buy a home when you have the chance to research and price check that you then might actually go and collect again from the, from your local store or from a local locker near you, and also make the return locally. And actually that allows you to have the convenience and you know, the, frankly, being able to make a [00:26:00] purchase in your own home.
Yeah. But actually experience things and touch things and return things without the costs of doing so. Yeah. And I actually think this is where places like Wimbledon mm-hmm. Quarter and other centers can be really powerful in the future, is that you have a collective ability here to put together for a whole bunch of different shops.
Mm-hmm. Restaurants, cafes. A collective approach to online and offline.
Yeah.
Alex: And so they can have their, you know, offline store where people can experience it. Mm-hmm. They can then use these huge service yards that these centers have to help with fulfillment and returns and click and collects. And they then have their web presence where they can have, you know, do the sales and Yeah.
Manage that side of things. So I actually think there's a real. Opportunity with these real estate assets for them to become part of a fully integrated approach to kind of, you know, basically multimodal shopping.
Nick: So what do you see your role then as the owner of a sensor? Um, are you providing a blank canvas where people can curate or are you curating.
For [00:27:00] people to attract them in. Um, because you know, it must be hard to know what the trends are gonna be in five years time. So yes. How do you have a medium term strategy in terms of letting the space? Is it literally just a shell or do you look to do a bit more? To be honest, it
Alex: varies. Yeah. We are generally very, very hands on with our approach in our team.
So we have the capabilities to be able to fit spaces out for people with our in-house construction team. And you know, we don't use any managing agents and all of our team on site are there to manage and support. And you know, for example, in the office sector in particular, you know, we have our own coworking brand that's fully serviced.
We have our own managed proposition that's fully managed and we have our lease piece where we're arms length and we don't, frankly, don't get in their way if they don't want us to. But actually the combination of all three is critical. 'cause of some businesses they want. Something very simple and plug and play.
Some want something a little bit more bespoke, but actually nice and easy. And others want to just get on with it and procure everything and do it themselves. And to an extent, that applies to retailers too. There's some who want a completely blank canvas, and it's really about us and them [00:28:00] deciding whether they're the right fit for the center, and there's others who actually want a more fitted offering.
And it's about bringing it all together in a way that works. Mm-hmm. And recognizing that actually the people who are working in the coworking space. Are the shoppers in the shop and other, the people working out in the gym. Yeah. And the people EA in the cafes and actually in our case, live locally as well.
Mm-hmm. And you're suddenly coming to the center to do a whole bigger range of different uses and you're staying in the center for a whole lot longer Yeah. Than you otherwise would be. SO'S all about
Nick: flexibility.
Alex: Flexibility
Nick: on
Alex: welfare,
Nick: the tenant and flexibility. Exactly. Your own
Alex: curator. And, and we go, um, and it ties into as well how we think about the experience too.
So we've kind of completely changed how. The marketing budget was deployed within the center. Mm-hmm. Historically, nearly all of it went in terms of sponsorships and a few events throughout the year. Yeah. We've basically hugely reduced our sponsorship budget. Mm-hmm. And made it much more about us doing things in the center that local people can experience, and so we have sustainable fashion shows in September.
Mm-hmm.
Alex: [00:29:00] We show the tennis, when the tennis is on, and the six nations. When the rugby's on. We do a ice rink during the Christmas period. And so it's more about us actually doing more stuff locally that people can experience. Mm-hmm. Rather than us just pushing our brand out onto other people's external offerings.
Yeah. And we've taken it to, this is almost to the kind of a even further level recently where we've actually launched our, our own online media business within Wimbledon as you do, which is called the Wimble Wimbledon. Yeah. And the idea behind. The Wimble is actually, we want to take this idea of community that I was trying to explain.
Mm-hmm. We, we are building in a physical form within the center, but actually apply that beyond the center so we don't just engage with people when they come in for an event or they come into shop or go to the gym, but actually. We are also being part of their conversation when they're at home or when they're engaging online.
Yeah. So that touch point, isn't it? You are there. Exactly. And the idea is it's a kind of Wimbledon, uh, publication for, for people of Wimbledon. We have a local [00:30:00] journalist who mm-hmm. Who writes all the pieces and we feature all kinds of pieces, pieces, pieces involving in the theater. Yeah. Pieces involved in the local football team.
Mm-hmm. New shop openings. Um, and the idea is, is that we're creating this community space in the center and we're creating this community space online at the same time. Mm-hmm. And we actually view it as. I guess what I would view as like proper content marketing. Yeah, yeah. As in we are able, because the center is becoming this mo mixed use space as a community, we can also engage with that digitally as well.
Nick: So as, as the, um, owners of Wimbledon quarter, um, do you still see yourself being here in 10 years time? And if so, what do you think the shopping center would look like then? Yeah, I mean, absolutely we are,
Alex: we are always long-term investors. Um, we, um, have been, yeah, investing in. Properties in Hamilton in full of, in the city for 50 years.
Mm-hmm. And we don't, you know, we don't really have an exit. We acquire slowly and we look to invest the long term and we also recognize that we are not finished and we'll need to continue to invest. And part of the problem that I [00:31:00] think that exists in a lot of real estate is that the way that a lot of real estate organizations are structured as they're structured according to, to cycles of funding.
Mm-hmm. And so they go through often a five year cycle where they buy reposition. And then sell, then exit. Yeah. And then often the people who buy it will then buy and hold. It'll frankly just decline. Yeah. And you then end up with assets that basically go through these cycles of mm-hmm. Being brand new and shiny and then declining and 10, 15 years later, then brand new and shiny and then declining.
Yeah. But we don't look at it like that. 'cause we look over, you know, a 50 plus year timescale. Yeah. And we recognize that in five years time we will need to continually reinvest in the center. Mm-hmm. And actually. We don't know over 50 years what uses are gonna be the right ones.
Mm-hmm.
Alex: But because this center is located in Wimbledon with this strong catchment and because we've set things up in a way that allow us to bring in a whole range of different uses.
Mm-hmm. That actually what we might have in 10 years time is we may discover that some of the things we put in did really well. Some of them did. Okay. Couple of them didn't. Yeah. And actually we need to mix that mix [00:32:00] of uses around again, but having a center that's structured around. A mixture of uses rather than the kind of retail monoculture.
Yeah. Actually makes us a lot more resilient, um, to what might come in the future. So it all comes back to that flexibility of offer, comes back to flexibility offer. And yes, you know, we might see, might see more shops coming again. We might see more workspace, we might see more leisure, we might see all entirely different new uses.
We might see some more private medical, healthcare, wellbeing. But fundamentally we think that people who live locally will always want local uses and local things. And local experiences to do. Yeah. And actually, whether it is online or offline, physical spaces have a role in both spheres.
Nick: Mm-hmm. Well, I think we can see with the footfall numbers, it's clearly working in Wimbledon.
Um, thank you very much for joining us for this additional of the podcast, Alex. That was really interesting. Any last words? Uh, no. Thank you very much, Nick. Brilliant. Great, thank you. Well, I would say go check out Wimbledon Quarter.