Face of shopping no longer has to ask ‘Are you being served?

FOR nearly two decades Princes Quay manager Mike Killoran has been the face of retail in Hull, a legendary ambassador for the city.

But now he is retiring on June 17 – 48 years after he started work as a management trainee at Simpson’s in Piccadilly, where Jeremy Lloyd got the idea for the TV series Are You Being Served.

The self-confessed “front of house man, salesman” felt his job was “to get totally immersed in the city.”

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As well as running the shopping centre – he came to the city three years after Land Securities poured £80m into the scheme – he’s been active in many other areas, everything from Hull and Humber Chamber of Commerce to bringing a Business Improvement District (BID) to Hull, as well as providing a never ending stream of optimism against the naysayers.

A familiar figure who must walk miles a day round the centre, his retirement party has been protracted and added one or two extra local awards to his haul.

He said: “I started in 1994. It was an exciting time, the city was going through tremendous change, the leader of the council Pat Doyle had a vision for the Marina and Princes Quay. Who would have thought of building a shopping centre on a dirty, smelly dock in the heart of the city?

“It was Pat’s idea to form a city centre group of local businessmen which was quite a big thing then, and I was chairman of this group and he was deputy chairman.”

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As well as Princes Quay, Mike, 65, has been involved with The Deep since its earliest days and he’s proud to say it has been an “unqualified success.” He said: “It’s probably one of the things I am proudest about, when (councillor) Dave Gemmell and Colin Brown had the vision they needed support from the public and private sectors and they needed a feasibility study so I put £1,000 into that.”

It’s not all been plain sailing, the early days of the Hull BID were rocky and taking extra tax from businesses to help run it, hasn’t gone down well with some independents. A landbridge which would have helped repair the damaging divide caused by Castle Street was never built, nor was the £300m Quay West extension to Princes Quay – a whopping 670,000sq ft of retail space.

“Quay West was a major disappointment. We spent a lot of time and effort on Quay West, but hindsight is a fantastic thing and maybe it was right not to go ahead because of the state of the economy. It was slowed down because the council wanted St Stephen’s to have a clear run at lettings.

“With hindsight that proved to be a correct measure with the state of the economy.”

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The rise of the internet and changing customer demand has transformed retailling and an improved Princes Quay website will be launched in a few weeks time to coincide with the opening of a new Pizza Express, part of a new food hall.

Retail, Mike says, isn’t strong enough to stand alone and has to be supported by food and leisure. But he is convinced Hull’s retail space has never been better and leakage of shoppers to other cities like York and Leeds is down to 20 per cent rather than the 50 per cent it was just a few years ago.

He said: “When we came here we couldn’t attract big brands. As soon as you mentioned Hull people switched off completely. That changed when you got in Virgin Megastore, Burger King, French Connection and TK Maxx and Gap. It was a real, slow hard burn.”

In retirement – he’s moving to a village near Bury in Suffolk where he will be closer to his daughters and grandchildren – he’s hoping to improve his golf and spend more time walking and biking. He is hoping to stick to his promise to his wife Joyce to do less. But that looks unlikely.

Chamber head pays tribute

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DR Ian Kelly, head of Hull and Humber Chamber of Commerce said Mike Killoran’s retirement party “has been about as long as Tony Blair’s”. He added: “Mike has been instrumental in bringing a BID to Hull and championing the city to shoppers far and wide and ensuring our city centre is a much better place than it was when he arrived. He enlivens any and every meeting I’ve attended with him.”

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