Ropewalk Shopping Centre
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The Ropewalk Shopping Centre is a shopping centre in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England. It has a glass roof not connected to the building, two floors retail stores, including high street retailers, and also a car park.
[edit] 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, the Local Council 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 dismissed because the council did not want the car park on top of the shopping centre.
The council said that they only wanted the new shopping centre to be sited on the car park behind the Queens Arcade and the council voted against the plan again. However in 2003, a new scheme was submitted and received planning consent from the council. It included the plan to demolish the Queens Arcade for a new modern shopping centre. The project cost £70 million and was constructed between 2004 and 2005. The Ropewalk car park was built first so that the loss of car parking spaces taken by the new shopping centre would not affect car users.
The centre has now been trading since September 1, 2005 and has helped in regenerating Nuneaton. One major contract, which the Ropewalk help bring to Nuneaton, was the arrival of American coffee giant Starbucks, which opened a large store on the High Street (next to Marks and Spencer) on June 4, 2007. Most recently, stores such as Jane Norman and Subway have joined the Ropewalk.
There is however criticism over the way the shopping centre is built. During bad weather, the staff put out buckets around the shopping centre to avoid major puddles of water being created by the leaky roof, which is due to the fact that the glass roof is not connected to the building. This problem is due to poor design, which has been criticized by shoppers who complain that the roof shouldn't be leaking water.
