TALKING SHOPS:Belfast's Victoria Square shopping complex has benefited not only from shoppers from the South, but also from the resilience of incomes in the region's public sector-dominated economy

ON A squally afternoon, the city skyline appears murky and pixellated, but the vibrant yellow right angles of the Harland Wolff cranes are still unmistakeable as you emerge on to the Victoria Square viewing deck.

The deck is placed somewhat vertiginously in an 80ft glass dome, and there is a full-time guide to help visitors identify landmarks.

But although Victoria Square might be Belfast’s latest tourist attraction, visitors to this retail wonder are supposed to shop primarily, not gawp. For those from south of the Border in particular, the really spectacular sights lie in the cake-layers of retail units below: the Monsoon dress marked £55/€85, the Topshop coat that’s either £85 or €127, depending on your currency.

Victoria Square is special for more than just its parity-friendly prices, however. Its open architecture means you might simply stumble into its cavernous shoplined shell.

Though shoppers are protected overhead, there are no side walls, no revolving doors, no signs marked exit. Instead, there are “streets” integrated with established shopping areas on one side and extending the city’s commercial reach closer to the waterfront on the other.

It’s an architectural pleasure – although it might be pushing it a bit far to call it a “neighbourhood”, a description courtesy of its developers, Dutch-headquartered urban designers Multi Development.

“The whole logic is that it’s not an enclosed space, it doesn’t shut at night. I think, going forward, it’s the way city regeneration will be,” says centre manager Hugh Black.

“There are advantages for the landlords as well, as we don’t have to heat the building. The disadvantages are people’s perception of what a shopping centre should be. People say, ‘it’s cold’, that’s one of the top complaints we get.”

On a crisp pre-Christmas day, the chill from the street adds to the ambience, in my opinion, and there is at least some body heat from the Thursday afternoon shoppers. Footfall in the centre was 200,000 a week in the second week of November, Black says, and can hit 350,000. “We’re on the crest of a wave, thank goodness. A lot of things have fallen into place for us,” he says.

There are still more than 20 of Victoria Square’s 99 units and kiosks vacant, but Black is pretty happy to have brought 35 new mid- to high-end brands to Northern Ireland, including a 200,000sq ft House of Fraser anchor store.

“Previously, Belfast was just a larger version of Derry or Coleraine, you had another M&S and Next, and they were bigger, but the same. Now we have brands that aren’t anywhere else.”

After an initial launch in March 2008, when “everyone and their granny came to see it”, footfall dropped right back, precisely because the more high-end chains had no customer loyalty.

“People weren’t a Cruise shopper or a Reiss shopper, or All Saints. So then we had to work on building the brands,” says Black.

The latest to open is Hollister, which is owned by US chain Abercrombie & Fitch and is “a massive draw for the young ones”, according to Black.

Hollister’s dark shop is a bit of a shock when you first walk past its saloon entrance: the spot-lit American casuals are a world away from the infinitely more colourful London-centric fast fashion of Topshop.

Partly thanks to the “B festive” come-to-Belfast advertising campaign by the Belfast Visitor Convention Bureau, cross-Border shoppers have come up earlier this year, Black says: “I’m hearing it in the voices.”

But “the bonus of the South” has been complemented by the resilience of incomes in the region’s public sector-dominated economy.

According to recent figures from the North’s Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment, average earnings in Northern Ireland increased faster in the year to April 2009 than in the rest of the UK, rising 3.4 per cent. A gap remains, however, with average incomes 90 per cent of the UK average.

“Northern Ireland has always punched above its weight. There’s a lot of money here. I used to work for Dunnes and Northern Ireland bats way above its size in terms of spend,” says Black.

And if money is tight, there’s always the unambiguously crowded, brashly lit CastleCourt – Belfast’s existing shopping centre on nearby Royal Avenue.

CastleCourt has “gone more value”, Black notes, polarising the retail offering at the two city shopping centres and thus ensuring the addition of Victoria Square doesn’t cannibalise the existing retail base.

CastleCourt’s increasingly downmarket approach is exemplified by the opening of the North’s first Poundland at the centre in October, as part of a major expansion by the UK-based company. In the intervening weeks, it has rolled out the brand rapidly and this Thursday, on Belfast’s Ann Street, it will open its eighth Northern Ireland store.

“The CastleCourt store is doing fantastically well – they all are,” says Tim McDonnell, Poundland’s retail director. “Poundland was very successful in the UK prior to the recession, but I’d be lying if I said the recession hadn’t accelerated our brand.”

The availability of retail units at post-bubble prices helps, but Poundland has also chased the town sites it wants, McDonnell says. “Northern Ireland was a natural extension for us.”

The value sector, led by the likes of Primark and TK Maxx, is now working together to bring price-conscious customers to one destination, he says. Certainly, the people behind Westfield, the operator of CastleCourt, are no dummies. Based on its equity value, the Australian-owned Westfield is the largest owner of retail property in the world; and much to the disappointment of Belfast retailers, including Victoria Square, it has lured department store John Lewis to its proposed Sprucefield centre near Lisburn.

“It’s the middle market where I’m hearing things are difficult,” says Hugo Finlay, owner of Hugo Thomas, which sells high-end menswear brands such as Brioni (Italian designer to Daniel Craig-era James Bond) from a store on Belfast’s Lisburn Road.

“The luxury market is holding up,” he says. “If a guy is used to luxury brands, you’ll probably find he’ll stick to them, though he might only buy one suit instead of two. He won’t step out of a prestige car and into a Volkswagen.”

Discretion is a newfound concern, however. “He might still be a wealthy man, but 20 people in his workplace might have been made redundant that morning, so he has to be sensitive,” says Finlay.

But thanks to enviable flickers of activity in the Northern property market, “the real-estate guys and the developer guys are starting to trickle back in”, he adds. “Nobody really needs a £1,000 suit, so when you see them come in, you know they’ve had a little bit of luck.”

In recent months, Hugo Thomas employees have made three trips to Dublin, taking clothes directly to customers’ houses or offices.

“These guys are very busy at the minute, they’re busy trying to keep things above water. We’ve had phone calls from their PAs, asking us to bring down shirts, ties and suits,” says Finlay.

In effect: if customers don’t cross the Border to where you are, cross the Border to where your customers are.

“That’s probably what you would call guerrilla retailing.”

Series concludes