The UK's prime shopping centres are winning. But getting a major retailer open for trade is far more complex than it looks. James Ainsworth, Partner and Head of Projects at Workman, makes the case for specialist retail project management as the connective tissue between a signed deal and an operational store.

When Next secured its 100,000 sq. ft deal for a flagship store at Lakeside, or Zara and Sephora joined Silverburn’s occupier line-up, or M&S opened its doors at Cabot Circus, the headlines focused on the brands and the centres. What didn’t make the news was the number of parties, processes, and technical decisions that stood between the initial enquiry and a retailer opening for trade.

The UK’s top retail destinations are, by any measure, performing strongly. Real estate analysts MSCI say shopping centres were one of the top performing sectors in the 12 months to September, with an annual return of over 10%. Meanwhile, rents are recovering, with growth having turned positive at the start of 2025, and has since averaged around 2%. Big-name retailers including Zara, Sephora, Primark, and Apple are actively competing for the best space.

For landlords and investors, that’s the story. But the commercial opportunity only converts into value if the operational reality matches the ambition. And that’s where the complexity lies. The question is not simply whether a retailer wants to be in these places. It’s how they get there – and how they navigate one of the most complex commercial processes in the property world, which can take anywhere from six months to three years from initial enquiry to open-for-trade.

Retail project management is unique specialist sector. Every enabling works project in a major shopping centre takes place in a live environment: around trading retailers, visiting shoppers, late-night leisure operators, residential occupiers, and site constraints that makes delivery complex. And every project sits inside an Agreement for Lease (AFL) – a legally binding framework of obligations that, once exchanged, defines exactly what the landlord must deliver, to what standard, and by when.

Beyond a mere formality, the AFL is the point of no return. And with more than 130 AFL projects currently live across our UK-wide Building Consultancy team, we know that reaching the point a retailer opens for trade requires specialist input once a deal is struck.

Take the Bullring. When the former Debenhams unit became available, the opportunity was significant: but so was the complexity. The space needed to be divided and reconfigured to accommodate M&S, Zara, and leisure operator Toca Social as three separate occupiers, each with their own shell specification requirements, their own fit-out programmes, and their own AFL obligations running in parallel. Translating a single large-format anchor into three distinct lettings, in a live trading centre, without disruption to the wider scheme, is exactly the kind of challenge that demands specialist retail building consultancy from day one.

Workman’s Building Consultancy team, through its specialist Retail Project Management and experienced Retail Delivery team, is involved from the earliest stages of a transaction: before heads of terms are agreed, before design work begins, and long before a contractor sets foot on site. Early involvement, and close liaison with both landlord and retailer, is at the heart of the whole process.

Workman has project managed £300m worth of enabling-works projects at many of the UK’s top 25 largest shopping centres over the past two to three years, for around 200 stores, including Zara, Next, Apple, M&S, and Sephora. This is in addition to millions of pounds worth of ongoing service charge projects and enhancement schemes (mall refurbishments, schemes, public realm etc) across the UK’s most prominent destinations.

At heads of terms stage, our project managers provide technical input and steer budgets to ensure negotiations are grounded in reality. At AFL stage, we review and negotiate the retailer’s own standard shell specification, which is typically written for generic new-builds, and often bears little resemblance to a 30-year-old shopping centre.

Translating retailers’ requirements into achievable obligations, removing the ones that carry hidden risk, and agreeing a specification that works for both parties, is specialist work. It takes experience to know what is genuinely deliverable, versus requirements that are onerous enough to be problematic towards handover

Project delivery always follows  the standard RIBA plan of work: design development, procurement, contractor appointment, construction, handover. But unlike a standard development project, those stages must be aligned with the letting process throughout to de-risk the process. Contractor and consultant selection demands retail sector experience; other sector experience does not simply transfer. The building contract must be in lockstep with the AFL obligations. And every part of the construction phase must account for the operational environment of the centre: deliveries, noise, dust, access, and the needs of every neighbouring occupier.

Running in parallel, Workman’s Retail Delivery team provides a separate but equally essential function: reviewing and approving occupiers’ fit-out designs at multiple stages, from concept through to pre-start and beyond. For larger retailers, that process ensures technical compliance and life safety sign-off before trade. For smaller and independent retailers less familiar with the process, we deliver a supportive framework that maintains design standards across the centre; a critical tool for landlords protecting long-term asset quality.

What makes this model work is continuity and consistency. Leasing agents, solicitors, asset managers, retailers’ project managers, centre management, property managers are all involved for different roles at different stages. Workman’s Building Consultancy team is the only party consistently present across both sides of the process, from initial enquiry to the moment a retailer opens for trade.

That continuity is what makes the journey frictionless. The institutional knowledge built through the process – the technical understanding and the awareness of commercial pressure points on both sides – is invaluable to both parties.

And when Next opened at Lakeside, Zara arrived in the Bullring, or Sephora took space at Silverburn, none of that showed, because when the process works, it’s seamless.