Businesses have revealed they face costs stretching to thousands of pounds as they rush to move out of the St Giles Centre before it closes.
While large national chains have cash reserves, storage and removal teams to fall back on, local firms have faced the daunting task without such support.
Tenants were given less than two weeks notice of the closure decision amidst warnings they may not be able to access stock and equipment after Monday.
It means businesses have been forced to pay up to £3,000 on making emergency arrangements while storing stock in living rooms and garages.
The Press and Journal has spoken to St Giles Centre tenants facing large costs and an uncertain future after the shopping centre closure.
‘St Giles Centre closure has taken money away from children of Moray’
Charity Moray School Bank has run a pop-up shop in the St Giles Centre for about a year, providing free school uniforms and clothes to local families who need them.
Development manager Debi Weir praised the shopping centre for giving them free use of a unit to extend their reach.
Meanwhile, they have created three jobs for those who had faced barriers to employment and given dozens of young volunteers experience running a shop.
Mrs Weir told the Press and Journal she has been forced to pay £500 to hire a van to remove their clothes from the mall as well as a further £2,000 on storage.
However, she praised support offered to the charity from GD Flooring and Decora in the days following the shopping centre closure being announced.
She said: “This is money that has had to come out of the charity’s funds. It’s money we can’t afford really.
“It’s money that should have been going to help the children of Moray but we’ve had to spend it on other things now. This is heartbreaking, we’re all gutted.
“For us, the landlord generously gave us the use of a unit for free. He got some business rates relief on that, but it’s still a generous offer.
“It’s allowed us to test the concept and we’ve seen that it works. Some days we’ve had hundreds of people through the door, increasing the St Giles Centre footfall.
“What we need now is a kind landlord with a vacant retail property in Elgin. We’ve proved the concept works, we don’t want to stop now.”
Anyone able to support Moray School Bank with storage or alternative premises should e-mail debi@morayschoolbank.org
Box Brand ‘begs and borrows’ for storage
Box Brand only opened in the St Giles Centre in October on a short-term lease to sell custom-made clothing, tumblers and mugs as well as Elgin-themed merchandise.
With their initial lease nearing its end, the firm was considering moving to a larger unit in the shopping centre before the closure was confirmed.
Wife and husband Lee and Grant Midlane have spent the last week packing up the business.
The firm does have alternative premises lined up on Harrow Inn Close but it is not expected to be ready for another month.
In the meantime, the business is being packed up into storage until its new home is ready to open.
Mrs Midlane estimated the total cost of packing up and moving from the St Giles Centre could be between £2,000 and £3,000.
‘We’re only in our third month’
She said: “We’re only in our third month and we had just started to build up some momentum. We’d established the concept though and were talking about taking a bigger unit in the St Giles Centre.
“We’re not one of these national chains that has the money and personnel to pack everything up and move it to another store. We have to do it ourselves and cover the financial cost ourselves.
“It has involved begging and borrowing for storage, as well as keeping stuff in our own living rooms, kitchens and garages and with our friends.
“We’re in the privileged position of having somewhere to move to reasonably soon but there’s still the financial cost to it in the meantime.
“As an entrepreneur you just have to find a way, so you call in favours and do what you have to do to make it work. It’s not what we planned, you just have to react.”
Subway fears about equipment
In the days following the St Giles Centre closure Liam Dalgarno, who owns the Subway franchise in Elgin, revealed he had just completed a £100,000 makeover of the sandwich shop.
He described it as “impossible” to arrange for crews to remove equipment from his business in the time allowed by the shopping centre landlord.
The Subway boss explained he had tasked property agents to search for alternative premises in Elgin.
However, he warned the business would have to close when the St Giles Centre shuts its doors and has been helping his staff find alternative employment.
Meanwhile, the owner of Elgin-based clothing firm Smadug, Sharon Davidson, has confirmed she has resorted to working entirely from home.
She has used a shopping centre unit for Christmas pop-up shops for six years as well as storage the rest of the time.
The business continues to sell products online and has not ruled out a physical shop presence in the future.
Business backing for St Giles Centre
Both Moray School Bank and Box Brand have praised the St Giles Centre for giving them space to experiment with different business models.
The firms also reserved special praise for the staff in the shopping centre for supporting them in setting up and in the days since the closure was confirmed.
Mrs Midlane said: “For Box Brand, being in the St Giles Centre has been good because it has given us the opportunity to test out what we’re doing.
“It’s an unusual business, one that people would tend to associate with just being online, but we wanted to see if it would work in Elgin.
“We can’t afford focus groups or things like that. We’ve just had to do it, learn as we go and this has been a great space for that.”
Mrs Weir said: “Being in the St Giles Centre has allowed us to test having a shop like this where people can come and look at this stuff for free.
“If we hadn’t have been given the opportunity of having a lease here then we’d never have got that opportunity to experiment.
“The children of Moray have been the ones who have got the benefit of that, now they’re the ones who are going to miss out.”
Read more from St Giles Centre
- St Giles Centre closure: Which retailers want to stay in Elgin and which could be leaving?
- The St Giles Centre expansion plans that were designed to help shopping centre to fight back against retail parks
- How St Giles Centre redundancy taskforce is providing support to more than 100 staff affected by shopping centre closure
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