As part of our Retail 360 series, we ask Adam Cummins, General Manager at St Christopher's Place, for his views on the changing role of the centre manager.

A few weeks into his role at St Christopher’s Place, Adam Cummins is already mapping out how to balance the needs of 182 retailers, F&B operators, residential tenants and office occupiers across a 230,000 sq. ft mixed-use estate in the heart of London’s West End. Coming from five years managing Angel Central in Islington, he’s swapping 34 occupiers for 182 and trading a traditional shopping centre for one of London’s most complex mixed-use schemes. Managing complex mixed-use estates like this is central to our approach to commercial property management.

We sat down with Adam to talk about how the centre manager role has evolved, what it takes to succeed in 2026 and why getting the basics right matters more than ever.

The biggest shift has been moving from reactive to proactive. When I worked in retail management myself, I’d only call the centre manager when something went wrong. Now, the expectation is that you’re building relationships before issues arise. You’re understanding how each business operates, whether that’s a multinational brand or an owner-led independent with one UK location, and identifying what’s blocking them from hitting their sales targets.

It’s about creating the environment that allows retail businesses to succeed. That means understanding who your customer is, what their demographic looks like, how you attract them, and once they’re here, how you keep them longer. Increasing dwell time is crucial. We’re always asking: How do we convert casual passers-by into shoppers? How do we encourage them to visit multiple stores, have lunch, and experience everything the scheme offers?

You can have the most brilliant marketing strategy and events calendar, but if the basics aren’t right, none of it works. Every morning, my team and I walk the scheme. We look at what customers see first: our entrances off Oxford Street and Selfridges are high-profile, that’s our shop window. Are we ready to trade? Is the centre clean? Are there lights out? Where are vehicles parked? Have all the overnight deliveries been cleared?

Then it’s about capturing anecdotal information from retailers. When customers aren’t buying, what are they saying? When it’s quiet, why? Understanding what activations worked last year, measuring success through visitor numbers and occupier feedback, and asking: what didn’t we deliver, and why not?

Massively. Post-Covid, retailers and F&B operators are stretched on staffing. They’re busy people, on the ground, running their operations. The way we communicate needs to be quick, precise and valuable. There used to be a culture of sending lots of emails, from property teams, operations teams, leasing teams. I saw my role as gatekeeper. I’d repackage everything into one monthly newsletter, maybe several pages but with all the right information. That meant when operators got communication from us, it was worth their time.

I’ve also encouraged my teams to move away from email-heavy relationships. Retailers aren’t sat at computers all day. The valuable insights come when you’re face-to-face. That’s how relationships get built.

It’s 56% food and beverage, which is very high for a scheme like this. We have James Street, which is very F&B-led and St Christopher’s Place itself, which is more retail-led, and they have very different needs.

For F&B operators, it’s about driving footfall on Mondays and Tuesdays when fewer people are in the office. For independent retailers who don’t have marketing teams or big budgets, it’s about creating content they can use, curating events that drive their businesses.

Then you’ve got residential and commercial offices. We have short-term and long-term apartments. Our largest occupier has been here over 30 years operating long-term lets, so anything that makes noise impacts them. With over 40 restaurants, that’s significant. So how do we enable restaurants to succeed without disrupting residential? It’s a real balancing act.

It’s changed hugely. At Angel Central, we added real value by gathering information retailers couldn’t get themselves. Post-Covid, we captured transaction data to measure conversion – retailers love a KPI. We built relationships with TfL to understand when people visit. We worked with local theatres, Kings Head, Sadler’s Wells. Arsenal Football Club was a huge driver, being at the top of Upper Street.

We used geocaching for 200,000 visitors per week, understanding where they work, where they spend their evenings, where they come from. When the Elizabeth Line opened, suddenly more people came in from the east. Sharing that data with brands like Uniqlo or Mango had huge impact.

At St Christopher’s Place, that data infrastructure is something I’m hoping to build so that we get to the granular detail.

You have to break down the mindset of “they work for this company; we work for that company.” Anyone who works in the scheme is part of the St Christopher’s Place team.

I involve people early. When we walk the site, it’s not just me: today it was myself, my operations manager, and one of our janitors. They see things I won’t. There are blockers stopping them delivering that I won’t hear about if it’s filtered through their manager.

But it’s also casual conversations. Stopping in the break room, asking “what can I do to make your job easier?” Sometimes it’s really basic, for example, they didn’t have a microwave, the sofas were tatty. Easy fixes that make a huge difference.

I encourage my cleaning and security teams to spend 15 minutes a day in stores, just chatting. At first, they thought they’d get told off. But they started building relationships, gaining insight. A retailer might mention a drip, or that their area manager didn’t like something – and mostly we can fix it before being formally asked.

You need to be agile, collaborative, inquisitive. Always looking for that extra 10%. You need to be the face of the estate – the go-to person internally and externally who can represent the scheme positively.