ARNOTTS department store in Glasgow's Argyle Street, for 60 years a
byword for shopping in the city centre, is to close at the end of
February. More than 200 workers will lose their jobs.
House of Fraser, the store's owners, have sold the property to Easter
Morrison, a newly formed subsidiary of the Morrison Construction Group
who plan to refurbish the building and lease most of the floor space to
another retail giant, Woolworths. The transfer fee is believed to be in
the region of #18m.
The news, which was announced to the workforce yesterday, was greeted
with shock. With just 17 shopping days left till Christmas, the staff,
full and part-time, have been given 90-day redundancy notices.
According to House of Fraser management, as many Arnotts employees as
possible will be offered posts in the company's flagship Frasers' store
in nearby Buchanan Street, which is to be given a #1.5m facelift.
However, the number of jobs made available will not match the number
lost.
Arnotts' employees were said to be devastated by the announcement. Mr
Dougie Johnstone, a local official of USDAW, the shopworkers' union,
said: ''I cannot find words to express my disgust. The management have
been awful. To say that the workers are bitter is an understatement.''
He accused House of Fraser of being cynical because, he claimed, they
had planned to get full benefit of the Christmas custom, then their
January sale, and then a massive closing down sale before throwing the
workforce on the dole.
According to House of Fraser, they were not in a position to announce
their plans until yesterday morning. Contracts between them and Easter
Morrison, the new company, had not been signed until 8pm on Wednesday
night.
A spokesman said: ''Easter Morrison approached us with a view to
buying the site and developing it for different retail purposes and,
after consultation, we agreed to sell.
''Arnotts is trading virtually across the street from Frasers, which
is our premier Glasgow store. Frasers has 300,000sq. ft and is the
largest department store in Scotland.
''Last year, we finished a #9m refurbishment programme and we now plan
to spend a further #1.5m. So we will focus our operations there.
''Frasers already stocks a large range of Arnotts' lines. The two
stores were increasingly competing with each other and that doesn't make
economic sense in the long term.''
Ownership of the property is complex. Glasgow District Council shares
the freehold on the property with Legal and General's Pensions
Management division. The leasehold is shared between House of Fraser and
Legal and General.
Morrison will begin their #16m development programme in April and the
shop doors will reopen in time for next Christmas. According to them,
96,000 sq. ft have already been leased to Woolworths, a company which is
anxious to make a return to the high street (it disposed of both of its
city centre stores in 1979).
The new centre is described as a ''variety store''. Also planned are a
number of single shop units, totalling 30,000 sq. ft.
Mr Dan MacDonald, Morrison's developments director, said: ''It is
because Argyle Street is one of the strongest retail trading pitches in
the UK that we have chosen to develop here. The development is prime and
it will strengthen the shopping environment as well as bring a new
retail focus to the West End of Argyle Street.''
The House of Fraser spokesman said the company hoped that as many
Arnotts employees as possible would be given preference for jobs in the
new Woolworths. The refurbishment scheme would also mean 60 construction
jobs during the development phase.
USDAW official Mr Johnstone said: ''It is all very well saying that
Arnotts employees will get the chance of Woolworths' jobs but there will
be an eight-month period at least between the closure and reopening.''
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