Bruntshops: How A Manchester Office Landlord Rethought Retail

There was a time, not long ago, when the ground floors of Manchester office blocks were an embarrassment, or boring or just boarded up. Too often a coffee shop — another one — was the uninspired solution.

Today, under pressure from office tenants demanding improved amenities, and from a sense that every square foot of Manchester commercial floor space needs to pull its weight, office landlords are rethinking their ground-floor headaches.

Bruntwood, which has 300K SF of street-level retail in Manchester with another 150K SF under construction, said it has rethought the ground floor. And it’s going to be funky.

Personalised food, Nordic gem stones and an eclectic range from food to flowers will fill Bruntwood’s retail units. Coffee bars will not dominate, but sustainability will, the property business promises.

“I think it’s fair to say that more demanding office occupiers have made a difference,” Bruntwood Head of Retail and Leisure Leasing Andrea George said. “Not only are they more demanding of the building they are in, but they are demanding of the neighbourhood. Their focus may be on the building across the street from yours, and you have to make sure there’s an authentic offer that makes the location more desirable.”

The result is a “trend spotting” approach to retail, George said. That could lure new names in concept retail like personalised food service Vitamojo — now operating from three City of London outlets — north. The cashless retailer offers so-called ultrapersonalised menus which mix vitamins and ingredients to meet the customers' exact needs.

“Vitamojo are the kind of thing we’re after, although we’re not close to a deal yet,” George said.

“We believe we’re trend spotters. For us retail isn’t just an add on, we see it is part of the way we link our assets together, so the different office locations together provide a range of retail and leisure offices.

“We see retail and leisure as part of the whole strategic offer to attract and retain our customers, and part of the way we do that is to animate the city and its neighbourhoods,” George said.  “We’ll do that in various ways from a three-month license to a 25-year lease. The relationships with our retail tenants are just as important to us as our other relationships.”

Hatch — the containerised retail space under the Mancunian Way in the Oxford Road student corridor — is already turning into an incubator for new ideas.

Northern Quarter-based artisan coffee house Takk opened an espresso bar alongside a nano brewery and bar called Öl. They join other new names including jeweller Nordic Muse, which have moved into landlord-owned floor space after three years on market stalls. When Phase 2 opens later this year the number of units available will increase to 30.