The Trinity Centre is to be put up for sale with the potential for an Aberdeen City Council buyout, The P&J can reveal.
The Press And Journal understands the Union Street complex will soon be marketed, with council documents confirming that fact.
Officials mapping out the £150 million city centre and beach masterplan have made councillors aware of the likely sale.
And they have mentioned the Trinity Centre as a possible next big purchase for Aberdeen City Council.
Last year, the city bought the former BHS premises and indoor market further down the Granite Mile.
Trinity Centre buyout ‘could help to further improve Union Street’
Chief planning officer David Dunne has said there is an “opportunity” to snap up the high street landmark.
“The shopping centre is located in a strategic intervention area in Aberdeen city centre and its future repurposing could help to further improve the profile of Union Street,” he told councillors.
The Trinity Centre sits right across from the long-running work in Aberdeen’s Union Terrace Gardens.
Would you support Aberdeen City Council buying the Trinity Centre? Let us know what you want to be done with the Union Street site in the comment section below.
A spokesman has since clarified the local authority was told about the impending sale during the masterplanning work.
The Trinity Centre is at the heart of Aberdeen’s newly branded Union Street Central stretch, once eyed for pedestrianisation.
Earlier this year, councillors agreed to instead set it up for continued bus, bike and service access for at least the next five years.
‘Possibility’ Trinity Centre will be put up for sale in coming months
Centre management firm Ellandi only admit there is a “possibility” of a sale soon.
Currently, it is not listed on the market.
A source told us: “There is a possibility Aberdeen City Council wants to make the Trinity Centre part of the plans for Union Street.
“And it is definitely a possibility it will be sold.”
In 2015, Trinity Centre was bought, along with another six UK shopping malls, for a combined £260m.
Earlier this month, news broke of Brookfield’s £140m purchase of nearby Union Square.
That reported price is £135m lower than the cost of building the mall.
Additionally, it is £10m under a recent valuation by selling agents JLL.
‘A business rates bill on stilts’: Empty shops a yearly £500,000 hit to council coffers
Questions will now be asked about what to do with the shopping centre, given the troubled high street.
Opening in 1984, Norwich Union spent £20m to build Aberdeen’s Trinity Centre as oil boomed.
Currently, Ellandi is advertising seven shops and three kiosks in the once-bustling mall.
One of those is the former three-floor Debenhams premises, which alone costs £412,800 in business rates every year.
Altogether, the empty shops could hit the public purse nearly £525,000 annually.
“It’s a business rates bill on stilts,” one yet-to-be convinced councillor joked.
Could the city council demolish Aberdeen’s Trinity Centre?
But there is one answer to a potential sudden half-a-million-pound liability.
Firms have previously knocked down empty premises to avoid the huge bills.
The council could then find some other use for the site, set in a prime location on the Granite Mile.
What could the city do with the Trinity Centre site?
Read what one leading north-east developer suggests here.
However, the council spokesman said demolition would “appear difficult” due to the integrated public car park off Wapping Street.
Furthermore, he stressed that any “repurposing” the officials mention would only be a matter for the current or future owners.
The SNP and Liberal Democrat partnership in charge of the council is yet to comment on the chances of a buyout, having been asked on Thursday.
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