We’ve been tracking the comings and goings on Aberdeen’s shopping streets for an entire year.
Last June, we launched our high street trackers, which keeps track on some of Aberdeen’s shopping streets, as well as all of the shopping centres.
Since then, we’ve been out on foot every quarter in order to check that our maps are up to date with the opening and closures of businesses.
This is the fourth full walkaround of the city centre that we have completed since starting the tracker.
Since launching last year, we also started tracking Inverness’s high streets in December– where two full censuses have been carried out so far.
We also track Dundee and Perth’s high streets- which means we currently are tracking half of the cities in Scotland.
Since we last completed our census, we found:
- Food and drink still holds the title for the most types of units, but shopping is hot on its heels
- There are no longer any tracked shopping streets with 100% occupancy rates
- The average vacancy rate has fallen very slightly since this time last year
- Significant work is being done to make our high streets and shopping centres a more attractive place to open on and visit
The picture today
The streets we currently track are Union Street, Belmont Street and its surrounding streets, Schoolhill/Upperkirkgate, Thistle Street, George Street up to its junction with Hutcheon Street and part of Chapel Street.
We also track both sides of the Bon Accord Centre, the Trinity Centre and Union Square.
The most recent data for June 2024 has seen a number of changes in the city centre.
At the last census, the average vacancy rate across the streets we track was 19.7%.
Since then, there’s been a slight increase in vacancy rates, bringing the average up to 20.4%
Union Street, the biggest street we track, has a total of 38 vacant storefronts with prominent ground floor signage out of 195 units (19.5%).
Back Wynd has a rate of 16.7% and two vacant units out of 12, while Belmont Street has six empty units out of 30 (20%) and Little Belmont Street has one empty unit out of eight (12.5%).
Thistle Street is 11.1% empty, with three vacant units out of 27.
Two of the streets we track, we only cover partially. Chapel Street up to the Holiday Inn Express has five closed units out of 20 (25%) while George Street up to its junction with Hutcheon Street has 18 vacant units out of 93 (19.4%).
What about the shopping centres?
In Aberdeen’s shopping centres, the biggest changes are seen in Union Square.
Plans for Marks and Spencers to expand into the current unit occupied by TK Maxx have picked up speed. As a result, both Home Sense and Dreams have closed their doors, as this is the space TK Maxx is to move into.
It still has the smallest vacancy rate however, with seven vacant units out of 86 (8.1%).
This is followed by the St Nicholas side of the Bon Accord Centre with two empty units out of 19 (10.5%).
The Trinity Centre is a quarter empty, with seven vacant units out of 28 (25%), while the Bon Accord Centre has 15 vacant units out of 56 (26.8%).
What’s new?
The below chart shows the change in shops over the past few months.
Since the last census, Danish brand Sostrene Grene opened in the Bon Accord Centre, filling the ground floor space that was formerly occupied by Jack Wills. Jamieson and Carry have also re-opened the former All Saints unit on Union Street which is to become a Rolex store in the future.
Other new stores include restaurant La Tiendita del Sabor on Belmont Street and Baba’s American Candy in the Trinity Centre.
We don’t update units to occupied until the business has actually opened its doors, but there are other moves in the works.
Some of these include Casc announcing it was to open a cafe in the Bon Accord Centre and the Edinburgh Woollen Mill is to relocate from Union Street to the St Nicholas Centre side of the Bon Accord Centre in the unit that was formerly Miss Selfridge.
Chaiiwala is another chain planned to move into the city, taking up residence on Union Street.
Gaming venue Thistle Tavern will also be opening its Union Street doors this weekend.
Food and drink is still on top
At the last census, food and drink overtook shopping in popularity on Aberdeen’s shopping streets.
Shopping isn’t far behind at 109 units (32.4%) however.
Of the food and drink units, 70 are restaurants or cafes…
Twenty-three are pubs or bars…
There are also six bakeries and two ice cream parlours.
Within the shopping centres, retail units account for 103 out of 158 units (65.2%), while there is 39 food and drink establishments (24.7%)
The most common type of store in the shopping centre is clothing stores, where there is 25 across all four centres.
There’s also 11 jewellery shops, seven homeware stores, five shoe shops and six mobile phone shops.
How have things changed in the past year?
Vacancy rates across the tracked streets have decreased in two streets between June 2023 and June 2024, while they increased in three others.
Vacancy rates have not changed in four streets – Belmont Street, Back Wynd, Chapel Street and Gaelic Lane.
The average vacancy rate across all units on the high streets has also fallen slightly compared to June 2023.
In June 2023 it was 20.71%, compared to 20.2% in June 2024.
Little Belmont Street previously had a 100% occupancy rate, however the recent closure of the takeaway Little Belmont Hut has meant that it now has jumped up to 12.5% vacant- as there is only eight units on the street.
Union Street and Upperkirkgate have both seen improvements in vacancy rates. There’s currently only one vacant unit on Upperkirkgate out of 12.
Meanwhile, vacancy rates in the shopping centres have fallen in every centre since we launched our trackers last year.
The Trinity Centre, which had a 37% vacancy rate in June 2023, had a rate of 25% in June 2024. The Bon Accord Centre was 29% empty in June 2023, and now is also 25% vacant.
The St Nicholas Centre side of Bon Accord was 16% vacant last year and has fallen to 11%, while Union Square was 10% vacant and has now fallen to 8%.
The average vacancy rate across all centres has also fallen from 20% to 16%.
‘The overall trend is in the right direction’
One of the biggest differences to Union Street is the visual improvement to some of the long-standing empty units.
The Press and Journal also previously reported the turning of 164 Union Street into a bright and colourful art display, painted by the Graffiti Grannies, which illustrates the history of Aberdeen.
There’s also a QR code, which when scanned tells the reader about the pilot project, which is aimed at filling the disused units.
As well as sprucing up, Our Union Street has also been teasing new offerings to come to the street.
Although business details are kept under wraps, signs which say coming soon have been put on windows of some of the units.
This shows that although they are currently empty units, this won’t be the case for much longer.
Bob Keiller, chairman of Our Union Street, said: “Filling the empty units is not easy. Businesses are moving in, but others are moving out.
“The overall trend is in the right direction and there are several units that have been leased but are not yet occupied.
“The incentives available on Union Street are unique – up to two years rent and rates free a fit-out grant of up to £35k from Aberdeen City Council, with free business support from a host of local companies.
“We launched our new website last month and have already had many new leads for potential tenants. The negative perceptions around the bus gates haven’t helped.”
Where can I see more?
We will continue to update places opening and closing on the above mentioned streets and shopping centres.
You can view our Aberdeen high street trackers which include the shopping streets.
And you can also view our Aberdeen shopping centres tracker.
To see more about what is happening to improve the city, we also have a page dedicated to the future of Aberdeen.
Can you help us keep our tracker up to date?
All of the data included within our high street tracker is collected manually by the data team and reporters in Aberdeen.
It includes units opening and closing we’ve written articles on, as well as things we’ve noticed while out on foot in the area. Our last open dates may be estimates based on the best information we could find.
But we know we might not always spot everything, or get every closure date right.
We appreciate all the support we’ve received for our trackers so far, and would love if you would like to help us keep it up to date.
If there’s anything you spot opening or closing you’d like us to know about, or if you have more accurate information on closing dates or what the last business to occupy a unit was, you can let us know using the form below.
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