Media & Insights

St David's invests in a major new seating concept

13 June 2018

The St David’s Partnership, owners of St David’s in Cardiff, one of the UK’s premier retail and leisure destinations, has today revealed an enhanced customer-seating project within the centre.

Over the last 12 months, thousands of shoppers were invited to tell St David’s what is important to them when they visit through a ‘Share Your Thoughts’ survey, which revealed that many people wanted more places to sit and relax whilst visiting the centre.

In response to this insight, St David’s commissioned creative agency Carocom to deliver the new and significantly improved central spaces with seating. The concept features bespoke furniture, new planters and geometric flooring. Pontyclun-based London Sofa Company were commissioned by Carocom to provide the unique bench seating, oversized sofas and ottomans throughout the malls, incorporating the St David’s brand colour palette throughout.

Speaking on behalf of the St David’s Partnership, a joint venture between Landsec and intu, Colin Flinn, intu’s regional managing director – west, commented on the investment: “At St David’s we strive to maintain our position as one of the region’s leading shopping destinations. Regularly listening to guest feedback is paramount in sustaining an appealing retail environment and this new seating will ensure guests have welcoming areas to take a break from shopping. It is also important we support local businesses and the London Sofa Company were an ideal choice to deliver Carocom’s fantastic designs for St David’s”.

Carolyn Grindle, founder of Carocom added: “We wanted to create something completely unique and ownable by St. David’s; definitely not traditional, but rather something unexpected, with a little bit of wit. The choice of materials, quality of build and fitness for purpose are just as important as the designs themselves. We make it our business to use local suppliers wherever possible and so were happy to entrust Steve and his team at the London Sofa Company to bring our family of pieces to life by producing the furniture to our exacting specification”.

Steve Clemett, CEO and co-founder of The London Sofa Company, said: “We were delighted when Carocom and the team approached us with this particular project, and having the rapport we have with the creative agency was a fundamental part of the project being so successful. St David’s is especially close to our heart as our main factory is based in South Wales. Producing the furniture for a landmark of the capital was an honour”.

Continuing to utilise guest feedback, St David’s have future plans to implement improvements to mall navigation and signage, as well as enhancing lighting and the appearance of the Eastside mall. St David’s are consistently striving to provide an experience that meets customer satisfaction, and so continue to welcome feedback via a dedicated website.

These mall enhancements follow news of recently refurbished stores from Footasylum, Superdry and the newly-relocated Kurt Geiger within St. David’s. In addition, Stradivarius, recently opened their store on the Upper Grand Arcade.

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For further information, please contact:

Nick Thornton at Aver on 07808 940208, or via email at nickthornton@aver.uk.com
Amy Cassidy at Aver on 07786 025417, or via email at amycassidy@aver.uk.com