A bigger Jervis Centre

Yeah, it’ll be cube like projection over the existing Debenhams store. Presume arnotts are interested in it.

It will surely be the short term let with the biggest retail floor area ever recorded if it happens; it is a lot of free fit out to hand to a competitor at the end of a 5 year term; presuming 5?

I’d like to see Arnotts take on the UK; I think they would do very well.

Glass comes to the rescue again. Or so the applicant would have it.

It’s quite a decent proposal, but I think the intervention to the main entrance on Mary Street is not warranted. Suffice to say the first line of the planning submission launches straight into this oft-quoted ‘rapidly changing retail landscape’ which so causes planners to stumble in a flurry across the office floor in search of their approval stamps before the application loses its hotness, and another entirely new proposal will have to be submitted to keep up with the following week’s latest trend.

Whilst the existing copper dome is somewhat cheesy, the imposing and elegant Portland stone monumental entrance arch is a good piece of civic architecture – frankly it’s ridiculous on sustainability grounds alone, let alone fleeting fashion terms, that such a feature requires complete demolition. What is proposed in its stead is a chic glazed box structure which projects out of the entrance void into the street. This will then merge with about two additional glazed storeys floating above it and over historic facades to either side, not unlike the proposed eastern side of The Clarence proposal, or the Gresham’s. This will, according to Donnelly Turpin, “create a contrasting ‘canvas’ against which the existing retained facades can be read more clearly and successfully”. I hadn’t realised we needed glass curtains behind historic buildings for them to be legible. Their other point about increasing the presence of the centre on-street is more valid.

The difference in this case relative to the others mentioned is that this terrace can take it – it’s a linear thoroughfare, reasonably narrow, populated with attention-grabbing retail, and some relatively low structures which could do with a density boost. Top-ups aren’t that noticable around here, and where they are could lend an element of excitment and interest. These are some of the most elegant facades in this part of the city, if quite low, and a complementary glazed curtain isn’t out of the question in this instance. Everyone knows Jervis is just a giant facade retention – this top-up proposal gives greater credibility to the building. A shame a roof terrace isn’t being availed of though – unlike others in the city of late this would have a stunning view overlooking Penneys and St. Mary’s Church.

Here’s hoping the internal reconfiguration and additions will also result in an improvement on the centre’s bewildering circulation, it’s ever-present downfall.

As an aside, I’ve often wondered what Peter Pearson referred to when he wrote about the centre in 2000: “its double height ground floor and glass-domed centre piece” – was it proposed when building to have a glazed central rotunda?

I’ve always thought the ceiling of the rotunda distinctly odd being finished so unambitiously with a plain plaster ceiling – it feels like the design was hurredly altered from that of a glazed dome to that of a biscuit tin with the lid firmly pushed on. Such an anti-climax.