The road to JL

So I eventually went to visit the new St Davids 2 development, including our famous shiny John Lewis (complete with its 350,000 different products) Verdict? Well, OK....

I started off at the old Queen Street entrance. The whole combined thing is now to be called just "St Davids Dewi Sant" from what I could see. Well I always used to like the main part there behind Marks and Boots, but I found the new decoration a bit drab, the floor a boring colour and the shops in that first short arcade from Queen Street a bit, well, past it. So then I turned down to the new section, where the crowds started to become more dense (it is half-term!). You can cross Hills Terrace into the ground floor of the new part or go up the escalator straight onto the upper floor, which is what I did. Strange that you can now walk from Queen Street to Bute Terrace without going outside!

I liked the upper gallery very much - very airy and a great sense of space. I like the way the arcade gently curves around, drawing you further on (as if you wouldn't, with JL beckoning you!) Loads of the units are still unoccupied, with many promising an arrival at Christmas or the Spring, but I wonder...

And so I arrived at the Promised Land of JL. Verdict? Well, like I said, OK... Four floors, all similar with a big hole in the middle with the escalators. I made my way up to the top where two blokes were betting with each other that someone would throw themselves off the top balcony into the shopping abyss...

JL stuff is very nice, and it is still early days, and it is half-term, but I have to say, JL Cardiff didn't grab me like the one in Glasgow did two years ago. Sorry! The queue for food there was huge, and I slunk off elsewhere for my lunch
And so outside to the Hayes. I see from the St Davids website that they wanted to turn the whole of the Hayes into a kind of European-style piazza. There are certainly more people around making it a lively space rather than the backwater it was once you got past the cafe on the island. I'm not sure however if it's quite the Piazza Navona in Rome, the Plaza Mayor in Salamanca, or the Grand' Place in Brussels. The outside of some of the buildings especially around the bottom end towards the new library I find look a bit brutal and not very friendly. I read somewhere that out of the six or seven towers of New Luxury Apartments (aren't they always?!) only one is being done up for occupation at the moment. Sign of the times...

So... we'll see. Are there enough shoppers with enough cash to merit this huge new development? If not now, then - soon? What will the effect be on St Mary Street and the old arcades? And what about Queen Street itself? As I made my way back in that direction Queen Street was absolutely heaving in the pleasant warm autumn half-term sun. The Cardiff crowds were out, the children with their parents, the teenagers slouching around, the students trying to look cool, and everywhere chat and busy-ness... I love it. I sure hope that dear old Queen Street doesn't lose its special place to the new kid on the block.

And I couldn't help wondering what Saint David, a man of simplicity and austere but joyful spirituality, thinks about having such a temple to consumerism named after him...

ps I couldn't find any nice pics of the Hayes, so these are of the squares in Rome, Salamanca and Brussels!