Overgate Centre
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The Overgate Centre is a
shopping centre A shopping center (American English) or shopping centre (Commonwealth English), also called a shopping complex, shopping arcade, shopping plaza or galleria, is a group of shops built together, sometimes under one roof. The first known collec ...
in
Dundee Dundee (; sco, Dundee; gd, Dùn Dè or ) is Scotland's fourth-largest city and the 51st-most-populous built-up area in the United Kingdom. The mid-year population estimate for 2016 was , giving Dundee a population density of 2,478/km2 or ...
,
Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
. Built in the 1960s to replace buildings erected in the 18th and 19th centuries, most of the original structure (e.g. the Angus Hotel) was demolished and redeveloped from 1998 to 2000. The centre reopened as a fully enclosed shopping mall in 2000 and follows the same basic layout as the 1960s structure. It is the only single-sided shopping mall in
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
. Two levels of retail units are enclosed by a long curved glass elevation looking out to the historic City Churches where a pedestrian precinct remains. It houses over 60 shops, cafes and restaurants as well as three car parks, two being multi-storey. The flagship stores are
Debenhams Debenhams plc was a British department store chain operating in the United Kingdom, Denmark and the Republic of Ireland. It was founded in 1778 as a single store in London and grew to 178 locations across those countries, also owning the Danish ...
, which is the only store that spans three floors, situated at the west end, and
Primark Primark Stores Limited (; trading as Penneys in the Republic of Ireland) is an Irish multinational fast fashion retailer with headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. It has stores across Europe and in the United States. The Penneys brand is not u ...
at the opposite end. City House, a ten-storey
office building An office is a space where an organization's employees perform administrative work in order to support and realize objects and goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a position within an organization with specific dut ...
, is located within the Overgate Centre itself and remains from the original 1960s centre. It overlooks the pedestrianised
City Square A town square (or square, plaza, public square, city square, urban square, or ''piazza'') is an open public space, commonly found in the heart of a traditional town but not necessarily a true geometric square, used for community gatherings. ...
and historic
Caird Hall Caird Hall is a concert auditorium located in Dundee, Scotland. It is a Category A listed building. History The site currently occupied by the building was occupied by a series of closes and tenements. The foundation stone for the building was ...
. City House is home to the Dundee offices of Curtis Banks, which employs around 40 members of staff.


Historical background


Original Overgate

The centre is located where, until the 1960s, there was a street called the 'Overgate'. The street ran from the corner of Reform Street to North Lindsay Street, passing along the north side of St Mary's Parish Church. The Overgate was also once intersected by Tally Street which acted as important connection from Couttie's Wynd to Burial Wynd (now Barrack Street). The 'gate' in Overgate comes from the Old Norse word 'gata' meaning road or street and has the same origins as the word
gait Gait is the pattern of movement of the limbs of animals, including humans, during locomotion over a solid substrate. Most animals use a variety of gaits, selecting gait based on speed, terrain, the need to maneuver, and energetic efficiency. Di ...
meaning to walk. The street was referred to as 'Overgate' because it was the higher of the two roads running alongside the city churches, the other being called the Nethergate (i.e. lower road). Gate and gait can often be found in historic and modern street names mostly meaning the same thing and Dundee's city centre retains several streets of a similar name: Nethergate, Cowgate, Seagate, Murraygate, Wellgate and Marketgait. The Overgate's old and dilapidated properties were deemed 'slums' in the early 20th century. James Thomson proposed their clearance in his city plan of 1910. A similar proposal came in the form of the Adams Plan of 1937; this did not progress due to the outbreak of the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.


1960s Overgate Centre

The 1960s Overgate Centre was a mixed-use development comprising hotel and offices to the west (fronting West Marketgait), a pedestrian precinct (incorporating an upper tier of shops) facing the City Churches;and anchor stores / covered mall to the east (to Reform Street). It was designed by Ian Burke, Hugh Martin & Partners in 1963 and hailed as the first comprehensive town-centre development of its type in Scotland. It included public sculpture panels in concrete and painted steel (depicting women in traditional market scenes) by Ian Eadie. It also had a roof-top car park accessed from Lindsay Street. Abandoned by the more fashionable chainstores when the
Wellgate Centre The Wellgate Shopping Centre is one of the two main shopping centres located in the city centre of Dundee, Scotland, the other being the Overgate Centre. It comprises two shopping floors and a third floor containing a food court, JD Gyms and D ...
(an enclosed mall) opened in 1978, it became much neglected and run-down within a decade. Attempts at refurbishment by replacing concrete panels with decorative steel were rejected in favour of comprehensive redevelopment.


1998 to 2000 demolition and rebuild

The 1998 rebuild effectively shifted the centre of gravity back to the Overgate, when many of the top line retailers chose the newer development, triggering a decline in the Wellgate Centre's fortunes, which has since seen several attempts at rejuvenation. Of the 1960s Overgate structure, only the parts surrounding the Reform Street entrance survive. However, with the exception of the City House office block (which retains its original facade), this older section was refurbished and reclad to seamlessly match the newly built main body.


Postponed £50m expansion

In 2006, permission was granted to expand and, in 2008,
Dundee City Council Dundee City Council is the local government authority for the City of Dundee. It was created in 1996 under the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994. History Dundee City became a single-tier council in 1996, under the Local Government e ...
moved tenants out of flats next to the centre to facilitate the project. Demolition commended in May/June 2009. The £50,000,000 expansion was intended to double the size of the centre and to include 50 new shops and a
food court A food court (in Asia-Pacific also called food hall or hawker centre) is generally an indoor plaza or common area within a facility that is contiguous with the counters of multiple food vendors and provides a common area for self-serve dinner. I ...
. The plans were put 'on hold' in September 2009 due to the recession. On 17 December 2010, Land Securities took over the running and ownership of the Overgate Centre from Lend Lease at a cost of £141 million.


Stores

Stores in the Overgate Centre include
Argos Argos most often refers to: * Argos, Peloponnese, a city in Argolis, Greece ** Ancient Argos, the ancient city * Argos (retailer), a catalogue retailer operating in the United Kingdom and Ireland Argos or ARGOS may also refer to: Businesses ...
,
Boots A boot is a type of footwear. Boot or Boots may also refer to: Businesses * Boot Inn, Chester, Cheshire, England * Boots (company), a high-street pharmacy chain and manufacturer of pharmaceuticals in the United Kingdom * The Boot, Cromer Stre ...
,
Five Guys Five Guys Enterprises LLC (doing business as both Five Guys Burgers and Fries, and simply Five Guys) is an American fast food restaurant chain focused on hamburgers, hot dogs, and french fries, and headquartered in Lorton, Virginia, part of Fa ...
, H&M, New Look,
Next Next may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film * ''Next'' (1990 film), an animated short about William Shakespeare * ''Next'' (2007 film), a sci-fi film starring Nicolas Cage * '' Next: A Primer on Urban Painting'', a 2005 documentary film Lit ...
,
Primark Primark Stores Limited (; trading as Penneys in the Republic of Ireland) is an Irish multinational fast fashion retailer with headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. It has stores across Europe and in the United States. The Penneys brand is not u ...
,
River Island River Island is a London-based, multi-channel fashion brand, founded in 1948 by Bernard Lewis. The retailer has a presence in over 125 of worldwide markets, in stores and online. Best known for its trend focused womenswear offering, River Isla ...
,
Starbucks Starbucks Corporation is an American multinational chain of coffeehouses and roastery reserves headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It is the world's largest coffeehouse chain. As of November 2021, the company had 33,833 stores in 80 c ...
,
Superdry Superdry plc (stylised as SUPERDRY®︎冒険魂) is a UK branded clothing company, and owner of the Superdry label. Superdry products combine vintage Americana (culture), American styling with Japanese-inspired graphics. It is listed on the ...
,
Topshop TOPSHOP (originally Top Shop) is a British fashion brand for women's clothing, shoes and accessories. It was part of the Arcadia Group, controlled by Sir Philip Green, but went into administration in late 2020 before being purchased by ASOS (r ...
, Auto Valet, Auto Windscreens, Bab's American Candy, Bodycare, Copstix Noodle Bar,
Clintons Clintons, previously branded as Clinton Cards, is a chain of stores in the UK founded in 1968 by Don Lewin and known for selling greeting cards, together with soft toys and related gift products. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange a ...
,
Costa Costa may refer to: Biology * Rib (Latin: ''costa''), in vertebrate anatomy * Costa (botany), the central strand of a plant leaf or thallus * Costa (coral), a stony rib, part of the skeleton of a coral * Costa (entomology), the leading edge of th ...
, ecoATM LLC, EE, Eglance Hair and Beauty,
Ernest Jones Alfred Ernest Jones (1 January 1879 – 11 February 1958) was a Welsh neurologist and psychoanalyst. A lifelong friend and colleague of Sigmund Freud from their first meeting in 1908, he became his official biographer. Jones was the first En ...
, Footasylum,
Holland & Barrett Holland & Barrett (H&B) is a multinational chain of health food shops with over 1,300 stores in 16 countries, including a substantial presence in the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, Netherlands, Belgium, Mainland China, Hong Kong, India, ...
,
Quiz A quiz is a form of game or mind sport in which players attempt to answer questions correctly on one or several specific topics. Quizzes can be used as a brief Educational assessment, assessment in education and similar fields to measure growth ...
, Subway,
Smiggle Smiggle is an Australian-based retail store chain that sells stationery and related accessories. It was founded in Melbourne by Stephen Meurs and Peter Pausewang in 2003 and acquired by the Just Group in July 2007. As of February 2016, the chain ...
, Stromfront Apple,
Sports Direct Frasers Group plc (formerly known as Sports Direct International plc) is a British retail, sport and intellectual property group, named after its ownership of the department store chain House of Fraser. The company is best known for trading pre ...
, Sky, Sensations,
Schuh Schuh (pronounced //, like "shoe") is a Scottish footwear retailer based in Livingston, Scotland. It has 132 stores in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The company is predominantly a branded shoe stockist, selling over 80 brands, including: Conve ...
, The Gentleman's Lounge,
Superdrug Superdrug Stores plc (trading as Superdrug) is a health and beauty retailer in the United Kingdom, and the second largest behind Boots UK. The company is owned by A.S. Watson (Health & Beauty UK) Ltd which is part of the A.S. Watson Group. It ...
, The Fragrance Shop,
The Perfume Shop The Perfume Shop is a United Kingdom perfume retailer founded in 1992 and owned by A.S. Watson (Health & Beauty UK) Ltd, which is part of the A.S. Watson Group. The A.S. Watson Group acquired The Perfume Shop in 2005. The company is based in H ...
,
Frankie & Benny's Frankie & Benny's (now trading as Frankie's) is a chain of Italian-American-themed restaurants in the United Kingdom run by The Restaurant Group. , it had 90 outlets nationwide. History In 1924, at the age of 10, Frankie Giuliani left Sicily wit ...
,
Goldsmiths A goldsmith is a metalworker who specializes in working with gold. In German, the Goldsmith family name is written Goldschmidt. Goldsmith may also refer to: Places * Goldsmith, Indiana, United States * Goldsmith, New York, United States, a h ...
, Juice Bars Fuel, In-Time Watch and Jewellery Repairs
JD Sports JD Sports Fashion plc, more commonly known as JD Sports or JD, is a British sports-fashion retail company based in Bury, Greater Manchester, England. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. Pentlan ...
, Little Thistle Gift Shop, and O2.


References


External links


Overgate Official Site
ainlynorfolk.info/june.tabor/songs (about the folk song)br>Then and now – changing Dundee: the Overgate
An article on the history of the Overgate by the University of Dundee {{Shopping centres in Scotland Shopping centres in Dundee Shopping centres in Scotland