Westquay South F&B Capacity Assessment
About the brand
With 20 restaurants including Bills, CAU, Franco Manca, Byron, Nando’s, Casa Brasil, Cosmo and Red Dog Saloon plus Hollywood Bowl and a 10-screen Showcase Cinema de Lux, Westquay South is the UK's largest restaurant and dining complex
Prior to the construction in 2014, Hammerson’s investor was keen to understand city wide F&B capacity and consumer reaction to the proposed designs
The Challenge/Task
Compare provision in Southampton with other major city centres
Understand F&B capacity and potential impacts on other parts of the city centre
Provide consumer insight on local leisure activities and feedback on the concept
Estimate likely trading performance to support the investment case
WHAT WE DID
Undertook a full F&B audit in Southampton city centre to understand the characteristics and location of existing supply
Estimated the F&B Trading Gap and prioritised unsatisfied areas of customer demand
Undertook focus groups with target customers exploring current leisure usage, strengths / weaknesses of competing destinations and reaction to the proposed concept, design and branding
Provided occupier sales estimates to inform the investment case
The Result
Pragma’s evaluation of potential provided convincing evidence for the investor to fund the development
Pragma’s catchment statistics and evaluation of F&B helped target occupiers to understand the trading opportunity at Westquay South post opening
The Focus Group feedback informed pre launch marketing activity and branding
The £85m Westquay South leisure development opened in December 2016 and has won several awards for design, sustainability and public sector partnership