An empty Union Street hair salon, forced closed by high rates bills, is to be revived as a gentlemen’s barber.
Signs for the Cleavin Barber Club have been hung above the door at 148 Union Street.
Work inside has been going for a month already. The first trims are expected to be served up a week on Saturday.
And a team of five barbers will be in place by opening.
There is room for more through the long, late 19th century granite building as needed.
Fresh start for Cleavin Barber Club
It will be a second start for owner Daniel Cleavin, who previously had premises in Cove and Banchory.
But, after a close shave with liquidation, he is relaunching his brand on the Granite Mile – a street undergoing its own second start.
He’s planning to spend the weekend staining the floors, having already painted and wallpapered most of the ground floors.
More ideas – for a pool table and waiting area laden with leather Chesterfields in the basement – will have to wait, as Daniel rushes to open his doors.
Help needed: Union Street properties are ‘massive, damp or just… f***ed’
“What drew me here? The condition of the building to be honest,” Daniel tells The P&J.
“I must have checked every property on Union Street and they are massive, damp or just… f***ed.
“Looking at properties, Union Street is a damn sight cheaper than anywhere else in town. So it is about having the money to do it up.
“There are a lot of vacant places but they need a lot of work.”
What are the challenges to opening on Aberdeen’s Granite Mile?
Daniel is hoping to draw upon grants, such as the new Union Street empty shop scheme, to make the renovations more affordable.
“For a place this size, you’re looking at £10,000 for floors for a start,” he complains.
148 Union Street is only doors up the road from Union Terrace Gardens, so they are “in a much better spot”.
His new place has big windows that will allow passers-by to see the glitzy chandeliers, rich interiors and suited and booted staff.
The only other option, Daniel says, was the old Bravissimo above McDonald’s.
But the unit was so large he would have left three quarters of it unused.
Rents a snip! Union Street rates ‘affordable’ again
The Cleavin Barber Club shot to popularity for its old-timey style at the first shop in Cove at Charleston Road North.
A suited figure, Daniel wants to offer shoe shines, cigars and classic cocktails (dependent on licensing applications) at his new premises.
His predecessors at the new building shut up shop in April 2022, as high business rates proved a final blow in their death by a thousand cuts.
Award-winning salon the Collective relocated to nearby Diamond Street, chased away from Union Street by their monthly £1,900 bill.
“That was the last thing, I was just thinking ‘how on Earth are we going to get out of this?’,” owner Julie Hulcup told us.
“It felt like we were never getting out of the mess that Covid had caused.”
So what has changed?
Since then, it sounds as though it has become more of a renter’s market.
Rent has significantly dropped, says Daniel, while rates have nearly halved too.
“Affordable” is the word he uses to describe the prime location shop, metres up from Union Terrace.
The Cleavin Barber Club to ‘play part’ in Union Street regeneration: ‘It will come together’
And Daniel is hopeful huge events like next year’s Tall Ships visit and ongoing residential development on the Granite Mile will keep him busy.
This, while efforts to turn around the city’s main street have stepped up.
A taskforce, Our Union Street, has been formed. It is headed up by local business guru Bob Keiller.
Last month, he revealed the 17 key themes that would dictate the coalition’s work to revitalise the high street.
Cleavin’s moving in date comes hot on the heels of Mr Keiller and his colleagues taking up their new HQ in the nearby Union Street pavilion, built as part of the £30 million Union Terrace Gardens facelift.
West end wine bar SugarBird has announced it will take up the final premises in the park, the Burns pavilion, later in the year.
Only doors up along Union Street, Aberdonian Daniel says it was important to him to play a part in rebuilding Union Street.
“It will all come together,” he tells us, as he recalls a number of new proposals to breathe life into nearby old buildings.
Much like the city’s great and good, ahead of opening the barber has his work cut out for him.
