The Ropewalk Shopping Centre is a

shopping centre A shopping center (American English) or shopping centre (Commonwealth English), also called a shopping complex, shopping arcade, shopping plaza or galleria, is a group of shops built together, sometimes under one roof. The first known collec ...

Nuneaton Nuneaton ( ) is a market town in the borough of Nuneaton and Bedworth in northern Warwickshire, England, close to the county border with Leicestershire and West Midlands County.OS Explorer Map 232 : Nuneaton & Tamworth: (1:25 000) : Nuneaton's ...

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon an ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It has a glass roof (which is not connected to the building), two floors retail stores, including high street retailers, and also a

car park A parking lot (American English) or car park (British English), also known as a car lot, is a cleared area intended for parking vehicles. The term usually refers to an area dedicated only for parking, with a durable or semi-durable surface ...

History and impact

The Ropewalk Shopping Centre started life as the Queens Arcade. For many years, the Queens Arcade was ageing and needed replacing, with many store units lying vacant or occupied by small, independent businesses. In 2001,

Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council Nuneaton ( ) is a market town in the borough of Nuneaton and Bedworth in northern Warwickshire, England, close to the county border with Leicestershire and West Midlands County.OS Explorer Map 232 : Nuneaton & Tamworth: (1:25 000) : Nuneaton's ...

decided to replace the arcade with a new shopping centre. An early design of a shopping centre with three floors, a bowling alley and a cinema was rejected by the Council, who in turn accepted a plan to build a Cinema and Bowling Alley in Bermuda Park, Nuneaton. However, in 2003 and another redesign to the plan, a new scheme was submitted and received planning consent from the council. It included the plan to demolish the Queens Arcade for an all new modern shopping centre to be erected on land which was covered by the Queens Arcade and the Dugdale Car Parks and see the Shopping Centre slicing Dugdale Street in half. The project cost £60 million and was constructed between 2004 and 2005. The Main Shopping Centre also saw a 5 Storey 500 car parking spaces Car Park built next to it which is run by Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council, this was built first to compensate the loss of car parking spaces due to the Shopping Centre's construction. Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council owns the site that the Centre was built on and has the site leased out for 150 years. The centre has now been trading since 1 September 2005. One major contract, which the Ropewalk helped bring to Nuneaton, was the arrival of American coffee giant

Starbucks Starbucks Corporation is an American multinational chain of coffeehouses and roastery reserves headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It is the world's largest coffeehouse chain. As of November 2021, the company had 33,833 stores in 80 c ...

. The coffeehouse opened its outlet (next to Marks and Spencer) on 4 June 2007. However, its tenure was short-lived and Starbucks left Nuneaton in 2009. In 2008 and 2009, The Ropewalk lost main business as the recession took hold, with Woolworths and Barratt Shoes closing up their stores, Blue Inc took over Barratt's Unit but the Woolworths Store was left empty. In January 2010, the Bank of Ireland took control of the shopping Centre after previous owners called Broadway Capital owned by Irish Investor and Property Developer John McCann were liquidated with debts of up to £64 million, most of that money was owed to the BOI. BTW Shields was appointed by the Bank to run the Shopping Centre on its behalf, however this new management has stressed that the Shopping Centre is open for business as usual. The Bank of Ireland said they will run the Shopping Centre for the moment before selling it off. In October 2010, the former Woolworths unit was taken over by

TJ Hughes T. J. Hughes, registered and styled as TJ Hughes, is a British discount department store brand which first emerged in Liverpool in 1912 The business grew to become a national chain with 57 stores by 2011 but shrank to just six locations after e ...

, who created 113 jobs for the town, which seen the Council spend £2.6 million on renovating the unit and building a lift and escalators for the retailer. In August 2011, TJ Hughes had given up the former Woolworths unit. The space was later taken on by

99p Stores 99p Stores Ltd. was a family-run business founded in January 2001 by entrepreneur Nadir Lalani, who opened the first store in the chain in Holloway, London, with a further three stores opening later that year. In 2002, Lalani decided to expand th ...

but this became a

Poundland Poundland is a British variety store chain founded in 1990. It once sold most items at the single price of £1, including clearance items and proprietary brands. The first pilot store opened in December 1990 following numerous rejections by ...

when the companies merged. On 5 October 2017, TJ Hughes returned to Nuneaton, but this time inside of the Ropewalk, occupying the former BHS premises. They remained in this unit until they left in 2020.

References

External links

Ropewalk official website
{{Shopping centres in West Midlands Buildings and structures in Nuneaton Shopping centres in Warwickshire