The team behind St David's shopping centre in Cardiff is in talks with cinema and leisure operators in a drive to widen the centre's appeal.
Steven Madeley, general manager of St David, said the centre hoped to replicate the success of its Treetop Adventure Golf attraction with new activities.
Interviewed in the May/June edition of Wales Business Insider magazine, Madeley said: “We’d love things like boutique cinemas, bowling and other things. People are time-starved, so you’ve got to give them as many reasons as possible to want to visit the city centre and specifically St David’s.”
Room can be found for them through creative use of space, he said: “There is space in places where you wouldn’t think there was space. It might be that we use what was a shop to be the front door of something else, that takes you further back into the building.”
Madeley will step down as general manager of St David’s in June, to run a management consultancy advising up-and-coming businesses. He said: "I’d like to work with small businesses to help them grow and consolidate.”
He joined the centre 14 years ago, led its extension which opened in 2009, and oversaw a near-doubling in shopper numbers to about 40 million from about 22 million. The centre is owned by St David’s Partnership, a joint venture between property group Land Securities and shopping centre specialist Intu.
The May/June edition of Insider, out this week, also includes a review of the commercial property market in Wales, Top 300 ranking of the biggest companies, Rising Stars, an interview with Georgia Gascoyne of Huntingdon Fusion Techniques, and features on manufacturing, crowdfunding and West Wales.