The rise, fall and rebirth of Leith’s Ocean Terminal

Upon completion in 2001, the architect Sir Terence Conran said his “modern and optimistic” building would serve as a “buzzing commercial district”.

24 years on, and Ocean Terminal feels far removed from that vision. The late designer’s adjectives no longer capture its reality. Instead, “depressing wasteland”, “empty”, and “in decline” were among the descriptions shared by users in a recent online forum discussion about the state of the shopping centre.

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With that said, this out-of-town shopping complex has been written off more than once before, and there’s still room for optimism. One of its two brutalist multi-storey car parks has been raised to the ground to make way for hundreds of homes as part of a £250 million investment. Its most exciting era could be yet to come.

It’s a wet Tuesday afternoon when I visit Ocean Terminal. As I step off the tram and through the ground floor’s main entrance, the lifelessness that’s become characteristic of the shopping centre feels more pronounced than ever. The sight is evocative of the eerie photos of so-called ‘dead malls’ — a phenomenon that’s gained traction online, where abandoned or half-empty shopping centres are documented in haunting detail.

(Image: Gordon Terris/The Herald)

Still, there’s a gentle hum of activity; the odd shopper is drifting between the shop units which remain occupied, but around half lining the concourse are shuttered. The survivors are high street staples - Boots, Greggs, and Holland & Barrett - while H&M remains the last major clothing outlet. On the northern end, demolished and partly rebuilt as part of the major redevelopment, a Tesco has recently opened. 

On the day I visit, both the escalator to the first floor and the toilets are out of order. Yet the owners are keen to send a different message: a sign covering one of the vacant shop units declares, “We’re building a better OT”. 

Central to the plan to reinvent the ailing commercial complex is a new ground floor gaming and entertainment venue, Gutterball, which will bring bowling, mini-golf, table tennis, karaoke, an arcade, and a “virtual reality arena”. The move reflects a wider shift in large shopping centres, where leisure and experiences are increasingly replacing conventional retail. These additions could prove crucial to Ocean Terminal’s future.

Moving up to the first floor - in the lift, thanks to the broken escalator - the experience instantly improves; after the dim, enclosed ground level, natural light floods in through wide, rounded windows on the roof, revealing how much more inviting the building feels inside than it looks from the outside. It’s said Sir Terence designed it like a giant ocean liner, which begins to make sense as you ascend through the centre. The long walkways and open atrium give the strange but pleasant feeling of being on a ship, as the glass front frames beautiful views towards Western Harbour, adding to the sense of being docked rather than simply standing in a shopping centre. 

On this level, it’s busier but still noticeably quiet, even for a weekday afternoon, although the retail offering is considerably stronger. Long-time tenants such as Build A Bear and HMV sit alongside a potpourri of other traders, including a Chinese medicine shop, charity shops, a nail salon, and a dance studio. A highlight is The Leith Collective, an independent gift shop offering crafts and items by local artists, along with a respectable selection of vinyl records. 

(Image: Gordon Terris/The Herald)

The story of Ocean Terminal’s decline is the same as most other shopping centres in the west over the past 20 years: the big ‘anchor stores’ leave, smaller retailers struggle to survive, setting off a downward spiral accelerated by online shopping and changing consumer habits.

Since 2016, Ocean Terminal has lost most of the traders that once drew the bulk of its footfall. BHS was the first to go, followed by Debenhams and then M&S. This summer, Costa on the ground floor also moved out, delivering yet another blow. 

When Chas Booth, Green councillor for Leith, was elected to the council in 2012, Ocean Terminal was “pretty vibrant,” he says. “It clearly has gone downhill a fair bit. We’ve had a lot of the anchor tenants at Ocean Terminal under a lot of stress and some of them have gone to the wall." 

With the departure of major retailers, the centre has shifted focus: where once it relied on anchor stores, it now depends on anchor entertainment and leisure. The 12-screen Vue cinema on the second floor is now the centre’s main draw, and is a favourite for cinephiles. One, on their way out, tells me it’s “hands down Edinburgh’s best cinema” as all seats are leather electric recliners. I’m also informed staff at the restaurants here - Frankie and Benny’s, Zizzi, and Nando’s among others - can tell which films are hits at the box office and which aren’t, as their bookings rise and fall with the cinema schedule. 

The Royal Yacht Britannia, permanently moored at Leith and accessed through the shopping centre, remains one of the UK’s top tourist attractions, drawing over 300,000 visitors annually. Meanwhile, Pure Gym, which recently relocated from a unit in the demolished northern section to other end of the centre, continues to pull in strong numbers.

Currently, 15 of the building’s 60 units are vacant. Five are occupied by charity shops or social enterprises. The Living Memory Association, a charity dedicated to preserving local history and personal memories, operates three spaces within Ocean Terminal, including a picture archive and a museum showcasing local objects and trinkets, as well as organising talks. During my visit, a packed presentation on Scottish lighthouses is taking place. Amid the struggle to fill vacant shops, it’s clear that these community spaces have grown, thrived, and are here to stay. 

It’s been a difficult decade for Ocean Terminal, but a major regeneration of the area - already well underway - hints at brighter days ahead, with new housing expected to boost the appeal for businesses looking for space in Leith. The addition of a tram stop in 2023, when the city’s centre to Newhaven line opened, has helped put the area more firmly on the map, though it has yet to deliver the renaissance that was hoped for. 

(Image: Gordon Terris/The Herald)

Last year Ambassador Investment Management - who bought Ocean Terminal in 2020 and has recently put it back up for sale - secured planning permission to build 530 flats on the former site of the north car park, which was demolished last year alongside Debenhams. This new neighbourhood will create a “pedestrian-centred waterfront, new mixed-use community amenities comprising residential, retail and commercial spaces, and high-quality public realm spaces,” Ocean Terminal’s website says. 

This is just some of the more than 1,400 homes granted planning consent in the last ten years around Ocean Terminal, including the build-to-rent towers at Ocean Point and the completed Waterfront Plaza. 

However the area’s most notable newcomer is not a residential development, but a whisky distillery. After four years of construction, the Port of Leith Distillery opened on the northern edge of the waterfront in October 2023, on the site of an old biscuit factory. Scotland's first vertical distillery, it stands nine storeys tall, and officially started producing new make spirit earlier this year. 

(Image: Ocean Terminal)

Its co-founder, Paddy Fletcher, says the distillery will “lose a bit of our views”, due to the new buildings, but welcomes the changes. “Of all the places in Edinburgh to build tall buildings it’s a good one,” he says. 

“In the long run, Leith is a booming area and more people down there is good for us  - I can’t complain about that. Let’s not pretend the old Ocean Terminal car park was pretty - it was horrible.”

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The business is bracing for “10 years of construction pain”, but he adds: “Whisky is a long game so it’s fine. We’ll deal with that and we’re on the map enough. Certainly having more people around will help.” 

However Mr Fletcher believes the answer to saving Ocean Terminal is bigger than just regeneration projects. ”It’s whether or not you can get people - young people - to just get off the sofa and go out - that’s the hardest part,” he says. “Nobody’s got any money. Hospitality is so expensive to run these days. Staff costs are through the roof, your business rates aren’t helping - everything is expensive. 

“Maybe somebody at some point will say enough is enough, we’ll just demolish the whole thing and build flats, which would be the wrong answer. 

“I think in the long run it is worth keeping.” 

Councillor Booth adds: “Shopping centres rise and fall in popularity.

“I’m certainly hopeful that that corner of Leith can be vibrant again.”