Capitol Centre, Cardiff

Capitol Centre (Welsh: Canolfan Capitol) (previously: Capitol Exchange Centre (Welsh: Canolfan cyfnewid Capitol)) is an indoor shopping centre in the city of Cardiff, Wales. Functioning as one of the city's retail malls, The building is built on the site of the former Capitol Theatre, and is situated at the eastern end of Queen Street near the Dumfries Place bus terminus and Cardiff Queen Street railway station.

Capitol Centre
LocationCardiff, Wales
Coordinates51°28′56″N 3°10′20″W
AddressQueen Street, Cardiff
Opening date1990[1]
OwnerNewRiver Retail [2]
No. of stores and services36[1]
No. of anchor tenants3[1]
Total retail floor area158,256 sq ft (14,702.5 m2)[1]
No. of floors2[1]
Parking420[1]
Websitecapitolshopping.co.uk
Entrance to the Capitol Centre

It was anchored by a large H&M store, with the front of the centre being dominated by Tesco since Virgin Megastores and Zavvi ceased operations in 2009.

History
Inside the Capitol Centre

Opened in 1990, the centre was originally built to mimic Victorian architecture which was a very popular style of design during the late 1980s and early 1990s for shopping centres; but the centre was also inspired by many of Cardiff's late 19th century Victorian arcades (much like Queens Arcade which opened in 1994 and more recently the new St. Davids centre expansion). This style of build dated very quickly and, in 1999, the centre underwent a £10 million redevelopment, which included the refurbishment of the pedestrian areas, the removal of the food court and new entrances into the centre (although much of the original external facade still remains). It was completed in November 1999.[3]

In 2012, three years after the St Davids 2 Development. Fears for the centre as most of its stores also has sister stores at St Davids, and that the centre would lose its popularity.

In 2016 Captol announced its new owner NewRiver Retail which plans to take on the centre.

Cinema

The centre had originally also housed a five-screen Odeon cinema up until 2001, it has reopened in April 2015 operated by Premiere Cinemas.[4][5]

Future developments

There were plans to develop 164 apartments, plus retail and commercial space and additional car parking facilities at the corner of North Edward Street and Station Terrace. This would provide 50 per cent additional spaces, bringing the total car parking spaces up to 632.[2]

The scheme architects, Dobson Architects, expected it could be completed by 2012, but this never happened.[2]

The opening of the extended St David's Shopping Centre and Council changes to road access has had a significant effect on footfall within the centre and been a major driver for the redevelopment of the shopping centre. In additions to the changes above, the redevelopment will include the complete redesign of the first floor shopping space, relocation of the existing tenants and the arrival of a major tenant to occupy the majority of the newly created space.[6]

gollark: Nobody will pay attention to that kind of vague platitude. At most it would be used for calendrical functions probably.
gollark: Well, if you're good at faking things and the organization is sufficiently dysfunctional, things.
gollark: Ugh, do I *actually* have to illicitly download all images LyricLy ever sent and find a good OCR thing?
gollark: Can anyone find the message where LyricLy was complaining about some ABR code with maps in it or something?
gollark: I'm trying to find where LyricLy was complaining about ABR's code.

See also

References
  1. "The Capitol Shopping Centre, Cardiff". PCP. Retrieved 2 May 2008.
  2. "Capitol idea is a £30m boost for complex". icWales. Retrieved 2 May 2008.
  3. "Capitol Centre, Cardiff". Colman Architects. Archived from the original on 16 July 2009. Retrieved 15 January 2009.
  4. "Lights! Camera! Action! A £1m refit will see a former Cardiff cinema brought back to life in time for Christmas". Retrieved 18 September 2014.
  5. http://cardiff.premierecinemas.co.uk/PremiereCinemasCardiff.dll/Page?PageID=0
  6. "www.capitolshopping.co.uk/shopping". Jeff Wilson Centre Manager. Archived from the original on 9 December 2010.
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