BANGOR’S derelict Flagship Centre is due to reopen later this year, sporting a new arcade boasting locally owned shops and businesses. The shopping centre, which shut down in 2019 after the gradual exodus of all its retail tenants over the previous decade, is now owned by Brookland Property; a firm headed up by Bangor born and raised businessman, Ricky McLarnon. He plans to reopen the centre in phases, and has now unveiled his vision for phase one of the revamped facility – the Flagship Arcade.
An 18,0000 square foot section of the centre sporting 11 retail units, Brookland describe the Flagship Arcade as ‘a fantastic opportunity for local traders to scale up their business and move into a bigger space in a prime location’. The arcade consists of revamped versions of the units running from the Flagship’s Main Street entrance towards the middle of the building. Four of the 11 units already have agreed tenants, and the shopping centre’s new owners hope to fill the rest with locally owned high streetstyle traders.
Information released by the owners indicates that the arcade should be open before the end of 2022. The firm also plans to release details of further phases of the centre’s revamp over the coming months. It’s the first major outcome of regeneration investment in the Flagship, and comes after Brookland Property bought the centre out of administration last summer. At the time Mr McLarnon spoke of his desire to return the facility to its former glory, stating that he ‘remembered the Flagship Centre as a vibrant part of the town centre’ and that ‘with the right investment and vision, that economic and social contribution to Bangor will return’.
Opened during the 1990s in a prime location in the centre of Bangor, the Flagship Centre was initially a hit. Packed with shops ranging from well-known supermarket chains to local stores, in 1999 it changed hands for a cool £15m, and was said to be bringing in more than £1.1m in rents every year at that point. But it suffered due to competition from several large out of town malls offering free parking, as well as the rise of internet shopping from the start of this century. It really hit the rocks in the wake of the 2008 economic crash, as the Flagship lost several of its largest tenants when chain stores started bailing out of Bangor town centre due to the difficult financial climate.
Bought by an English firm in 2016, by that point its value had slumped to a comparatively paltry £2.2m – but the sale failed to halt the slide in the Flagship Centre’s fortunes. The final nails in the shopping centre’s coffin came when Argos pulled out in May 2017, followed by anchor tenant Dunnes shutting its Flagship branch down the following month. A year later the Poundland chain went bust, costing the centre one of its few remaining well-known names. For the last couple of years of its life the centre was almost totally empty, a shadow of its former self with just a handful of shops and community organisations still taking up units on its premises. It finally closed down in January 2019, by which point retailers had pulled out of the Flagship entirely.
