Traders offer qualified praise for Towncentre after its first year

Despite the country"s economic downturn, a sampling of traders we spoke to at Athlone Towncentre said they were relatively happy with how their stores had performed over the centre"s first twelve months. The €345 million retail development transformed Athlone"s commercial landscape when it opened its doors on November 1, 2007. Dean Smith, manager of Zavvi, said that sales at its Towncentre branch have been strong and that the change in the economic climate hasn"t had a significant impact on its performance. 'We haven"t really noticed the effects of it as yet,' he commented. The manager of Vero Moda and Jack & Jones, Emer Kearney, said that the stores" performance has been 'quite good... maybe not as successful as we"d hoped, but it"s been picking up month by month. The centre itself is great because it has a very European feel to it and we"re a Danish company so we fit in well with that.' The Towncentre branch is the first Jack & Jones store in Athlone and its sales performance in the days after it opened was a record-breaker for the company. 'Ourselves and H&M are probably among the cheapest stores in the centre so that"s a big advantage at the moment,' said Ms Kearney. She felt that the marketing of the centre had been inadequate for the first six months but had picked up significantly since then. 'Shirley Delahunt has come in and done an amazing job in terms of marketing the centre. She"s distributed "10% off" vouchers to people"s homes and organised the centre"s first birthday party last weekend which went really well. Our store had a very good month in October and we"re hoping that November will be equally good.' Darren Rennicks of computer goods retailer Click said that the company was happy with its overall performance in the Towncentre to date and was looking forward to a busy Christmas shopping season. Another store manager, who asked not to be identified, stated that while her store had done reasonably well her impression was that customer numbers at the centre were not quite as high as in Golden Island at this stage. 'Business has been picking up here but it"s still a bit quieter than it was at the end of last year. The centre had just opened and people had more money then. The advertising and promotion of the centre is definitely improving and I think the car parking charge of just €3 for a whole day is an advantage,' she stated. Eason store manager Christine Cawley commented that the economy is likely to mean shoppers will be more cautious than usual this Christmas but said her store will have a number of special offers in a bid to attract custom over the festive season. Referring to the Towncentre as a whole, she said: 'It"s a beautiful centre. It"s bright, new, and it"s certainly attracting out-of-town custom.' After the closure of the Eason Golden Island outlet earlier this year, the Towncentre branch is now its only store in Athlone. Catherine felt that the size of the new two-storey branch was a definite advantage. 'It gives us so much more scope. We have been able to do things like start our Eason"s Book Club and organise children"s book readings. We would never have been able to do that in Golden Island because the store simply wasn"t big enough. It"s nice to now be in a position where we can offer things like that to the local community,' she said.