Dead Parrot

An insult to Parrots

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Herald wrote:

PLYMOUTH Argyle chief James Brent has revealed he is in “active” talks with potential partners about building a new grandstand as he admits his initial multiplex cinema plan is now “a proverbial dead parrot”.

Mr Brent, chairman at the football club, confirmed plans to site a £40million leisure development, including a cinema, at Bretonside had scuppered his proposals for Home Park.

He said advisors told him the city could not support three multi-screen cinema complexes.

But he insisted he was now working on a new way of funding a grandstand for the football club, and looking at ways an ice rink could be built in the area too.

He said a hotel development could still feature in any forthcoming project, and with the city’s and nation’s economies on the rise, the climate for development is now much improved.

Any movement on those projects would then open the way for future development of the other key Plymouth site under Mr Brent’s control: the Pavilions.

With a promise to safeguard the ice rink there until a new facility is built, Mr Brent said his Home Park plans take priority.

But he said some work may be carried out to construct more of the so-called “boulevard” linking Millbay to the city centre.

And he revealed that all his business interests were now in turnaround, with Plymouth Argyle and the Pavilions in profit after years of decline.

His hotel and retail interests are faring well too, Mr Brent said, giving him renewed confidence for his development plans.

Nevertheless, he said the inability to move forward with proposals for a new grandstand at Home Park was “a big disappointment”.

He stressed a new grandstand could generate at least £1million of income a year, even with the club in League 2, and was therefore essential to long-term plans to haul Argyle back up the divisions to a Championship berth.

“It’s important to have it in place to sustain Championship football,” he told The Herald.

“For League 2 and League 1 our revenues are sufficient, although the facility is inadequate and not acceptable for fans.

“So we need to move on and look at a different approach. We are working very hard to deliver it in a different way.

“We are in discussions that are very active at the moment,” he said, explaining these are with “third party potential partners”.

But he was unable to comment further saying: “There are other blocks we want to put in place first.

“We have to be cautious until we have a degree of confidence it will go ahead.”

But he insisted a new grandstand was a priority and said: “It’s core to the football club and important to the city and this part of the city to have strong leisure and sporting facilities.

“The strategy is to build a grandstand to get us to the Championship.

“The fans are impatient, and I’m the most impatient of the fans, and want it to happen quickly.”

Mr Brent said the initial idea had been to fund the grandstand from the profits generated by developing Higher Home Park, the zone around the stadium including what is currently a car park, by building a multiplex cinema, restaurants and bars.

But with a rival leisure development at Bretonside now on the cards “that is not going to happen”.

“Tactic one, a multiplex to fund it, is now a proverbial dead parrot,” he said. “We are looking enthusiastically at a plan B.

“Bretonside hurt, but we did not cry into our soup and have carried on.”

He did not rule out that a hotel could “still be a part” of a grandstand development.

“The city is under-hotelled,” he said. “It’s much easier to build hotels now than three years ago.

“Hotels are trading better and banks are lending now. The economic environment is better, and people better understand Plymouth and the deep South West, we’re finding more interest coming out of London into Plymouth and its surrounds.

“But there are still challenges.”

Mr Brent said discussions were also continuing as regards placing a new ice rink in the Home Park area.

“We have been in active discussions with parties,” he said.

And he said that with property prices rising, redevelopment of the Pavilions site, now owned by Mr Brent’s Natatomisam Ltd holding company and his pension fund, was also now “more viable”.

“We are looking at how we can improve the Pavilions site,” he said.

“Part of our contract with Plymouth City Council is to guarantee continuous provision of a music venue and ice facility for 10 years of our takeover (in 2011).

“There’s no risk of us closing the ice, unless we have built new ice.”

He said plans for further development of the Pavilions area, with a mix of commercial and residential uses, and to extend the “boulevard” are therefore on hold.

But Mr Brent stressed development of the site was still the ambition and said it was possible some work could be carried out to connect the city to the stretch of “boulevard” already created by English Cities Fund as part of its Millbay upgrade.

ALL BUSINESSES IN PROFIT

PLYMOUTH Argyle and the Pavilions both made small profits in 2014 turning around years of loss-making – supremo James Brent has revealed.

Mr Brent said his other business interests were doing well too, with his Saltrock clothing chain forecast to boost revenue to more than £20million this year.

Mr Brent, chairman of the football club and in charge of the companies owning the Pavilions site, said he was now “more positive” about the city and business his interests in it.

He revealed the football club and Pavilions had both made profits in the “tens of thousands” in 2014, after years of losses. The bleeding had been stemmed, he said, by boosting revenue through increased ticket and retail sales.

He said the “small bottom-line and cash profit” for the football club was a major achievement considering it made an £8million loss the year before he took control in 2011.

“And when you compare it to other clubs in the league it’s very good,” he said. “It’s rare in business that you celebrate making a modest profit, but in football it’s an achievement.”

He said the club’s on-field improvement, which saw it reach the League 2 play-offs last season, just two years after finishing in 21st place out of 24, had been done “without stripping money out”.

He paid credit to chief executive Martyn Starnes and his team.

“Revenue has increased significantly, from ticketing to retail, with the biggest product being the football strip, to commercial and hospitality – they were all significantly up,” he said.

He said that for Argyle it was vitally important to run as a sustainable business.

“I know some fans would prefer a sugar daddy model,” Mr Brent said. “We’ve loaned the club quite a bit of money, but that was to deal with old, inherited problems. But it is important that this club gets back to the Championship on a sustainable basis, and that’s that right approach.”

Mr Brent also praised Pavilions general manager Gavin Marshall and his team for turning around a continued annual loss in “seven digits”.

“We made a small cash profit, in the tens of thousands, last year,” he said. “And Gavin has done it not by making hundreds of people redundant and de-investing but by revenues increasing dramatically and running things smarter.

“Similar to the football club we need to be financially stable, that’s the most important thing.”

He said an increased turnover target for the Pavilions already looked like it was going to be beaten this year.

Mr Brent’s Saltrock surf-style clothing chain has also been expanding since his Natatomisam Ltd holding company acquired an approximately 87 per cent stake.

The chain Plymouth store, in Old Town Street, is one of 40 – there were just 14 when Mr Brent took over and 24 in 2014.

He said 2014 revenues hit £11million, up from £7million, and are forecast to double in 2015, surpassing the £20million mark.

Saltrock made a £865,000 profit in 2014, up from £130,000.

That comes on the back of a £730,000 loss the year before he took command.

Mr Brent’s hotel interests are also trading profitably, he said.

Seems to be slighty better than the mk2 administration style financial collapse that was promised by some only recently.

Did see an impressive Saltrock store in Bournemouth last week....certainly an expanding business.

Can he just admit he cant do property development already

How did he not notice the Bretonside development before he planned HHP?

"...multiplex cinema plan is now “a proverbial dead parrot”".

It's taken him long enough to admit it.

"We are looking enthusiastically at a plan B."

What happened to all of that "there is no alternative" rhetoric?

Now toddle off and come back to us with a decent, acceptable plan for a grandstand, NOT a ministand, because all of the spec that meant it had to be like that, so we were told, came about as a result of the rest of the development that is now no longer happening.

Alternatively just bloody toddle off.

The Parrot was never really alive was it?
The only way to get a replacement Mayflower before most of us expire is to get a new owner in!
See the reluctant one is expressing utterings about the aim for returning to the Championship this while there is every indication that the playing budget for this year is not massive as recently mentioned by Derek Adams.
So we have to hope that Derek is the new Fergie - enjoy the ride as they say.

Apparently Plymouth is under-hoteled, yet we have a hotel in the most prime site in the whole of the City overlooking the Sound, that is standing derelict?

Brent is simply desperate to build anything resembling a stand and ice-rink, so that the keys to real development profit can be unlocked at Millbay. Simple as that.

Czarcasm wrote:

Apparently Plymouth is under-hoteled, yet we have a hotel in the most prime site in the whole of the City overlooking the Sound, that is standing derelict?

Brent is simply desperate to build anything resembling a stand and ice-rink, so that the keys to real development profit can be unlocked at Millbay. Simple as that.

Even if he does build the smallest cheapest tackiest stand going and a small ice rink millbay still wont happen.

Not sure what to make of it but obviously the footy side is hampering any 'real deals' on the horizon in Plymouth - anything sub 20k is a nonstarter with me and I suspect many Argyle fans. With the expanding boundaries of the city you can estimate a population in excess of 275k - we all know that what happens on the pitch has only ever been the answer to filling seats!! Some creative thinking to be done me thinks.

Just pro Brent propaganda in response to recent threads on here and facebook criticising him.

Angry wrote:

Czarcasm wrote:

Apparently Plymouth is under-hoteled, yet we have a hotel in the most prime site in the whole of the City overlooking the Sound, that is standing derelict?

Brent is simply desperate to build anything resembling a stand and ice-rink, so that the keys to real development profit can be unlocked at Millbay. Simple as that.

Even if he does build the smallest cheapest tackiest stand going and a small ice rink millbay still wont happen.

It would happen Angry. Brent knows that there is real profit to be made at Millbay. He knows where to speculate to accumulate. It isn't at HHP, but it is definitely at Millbay. The terms laid down by PCC mean that a new ice rink needs to be provided elsewhere in the City by Brent before he can bulldoze that part of the Pavilions and join in with the huge amount of development already going on in the area.

Wake me up when it's built already. I'm fundamentally a patient and understanding sort who remembers the starting point in all this but even so, on and on it goes, every season that stand becomes more and more anachronistic.

I'm encouraged by the small print that we turned a small profit, that's significant. But it's like the strange wave of euphoria you get when you've finished vomiting, it feels better but you're still bent over the toilet knowing there's more to come.

Never a good time to go into administration, but just before a massive prolonged recession is possibly the worst of times. It is making recovery a considerably longer and more painful process.

Has my helluva beating officially finished?

I hope he gets it right for us and I hope it happens. But hope and expectations are worlds apart, I'm expecting the grandstand plan to remain the same (at best) and the business proposal to fund it to be just as half arsed. I'm not anticipating this to happen. I fear the longer we delay on this type of build and the longer we dither in the forth tier the more difficult it will be to climb back up the footballing ladder. The divide is ever increasing and the longer we miss out, the harder and more impossible it'll be to enjoy any success again. Look at Sky Sports expanding their promotion of the Football League, 25 matches live games are now planned for the opening couple of months of the season - yet only 3 of those are League One and just the solitary League Two game. Leeds United alone are enjoying as many live matches as League One and Two combined!

Small profit but club had to beg for money to send youth team to ireland ?
'argyle supremo' lol

The small profit was probably the Trust's 1500 knicker.

seadog wrote:

The small profit was probably the Trust's 1500 knicker.

Shirt sales contributed to it incredibly. That's either bollocks or a horrible sign that Argyle will roll over and have it's tummy tickled by Puma again when it's contract is up for renewal again

Did we really sell that many 'M' stripes and Norwich replicas last year?

Compared to the sky blue abomination? Probably.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

Compared to the sky blue abomination? Probably.

I liked that kit the only that stopped me every buying if i were tempted too was that awful fes logo on the back.

Is that interview a piss take? We have the Trust fundraising, taking down signs, touching up the paintwork and clearing up the rubbish. We have fundraising to send the youth team to the Milk Cup because the club can't afford it. 'Big society' at its finest. BUT the club made tens of thousands in profit? Hang on...

Czarcasm wrote:

Angry wrote:

Czarcasm wrote:

Apparently Plymouth is under-hoteled, yet we have a hotel in the most prime site in the whole of the City overlooking the Sound, that is standing derelict?

Brent is simply desperate to build anything resembling a stand and ice-rink, so that the keys to real development profit can be unlocked at Millbay. Simple as that.

Even if he does build the smallest cheapest tackiest stand going and a small ice rink millbay still wont happen.

It would happen Angry. Brent knows that there is real profit to be made at Millbay. He knows where to speculate to accumulate. It isn't at HHP, but it is definitely at Millbay. The terms laid down by PCC mean that a new ice rink needs to be provided elsewhere in the City by Brent before he can bulldoze that part of the Pavilions and join in with the huge amount of development already going on in the area.

His track record for getting anything built despite council help is not great at all and again i feel even if he builds the stand and the ice rink to the bare minimum standard he can get away with there will be something stopping him building millbay like it has that hotel in torquay.

Council should just cut their losses and offer the development of millbay to another who can deliver im sure the city of plymouth will cope without an ice rink for a year or two given there is always on in the town centre of the winter months to use. Brent can do the kind thing and sell up too.

It's strange how the Pavillions can now make a profit since the swimming pool (shirley the most expensive part of complex to run with energy costs , chemicals and staffing) has been closed down.

Does the profit include the £200K/annum PCC subsidy for ten years?

Brent would gain more Kudos if he willingly named the "Potential Partners" but as usual by failing to do so, leads Readers with an IQ of more than 3 to contemplate if he's actually referring to Pork Chop and a Couple of Posties.

For me its just more bulls**t.

Gentleman Jim once again has a free run in which no questions are asked and certainly no follow up questions.

Can't take to him and don't believe a word he says.

harvetheslayer wrote:

Brent would gain more Kudos if he willingly named the "Potential Partners" but as usual by failing to do so, leads Readers with an IQ of more than 3 to contemplate if he's actually referring to Pork Chop and a Couple of Posties.

"Potential Partners" would prefer to... dot the i's and cross the t's ...before revealing their interest in such a deal.