Work on Friars Walk is entering the last few months before the doors open to the public on November 12, 2015 at 10am.

With the physical building work now well under way and some retailers set to start fitting out in the near future, thoughts of the management team is turning to preparing for the opening and recruiting the people who will make sure the retail and leisure centre fulfils its role in the city.

Simon Pullen, the recently appointed centre manager and operations director for developers Queensberry Real Estate, who previously worked in Newport 20 years ago at the Kingsway Centre, said: “The main role as centre manager is to make sure the development is clean, safe and secure. We also need to need to build, manage and run the relationship with the retailers and also doing the same with the retailers in the rest of the city centre.

“We will probably employ about 30 people to manage the development on a day to day basis including a security team and cleaners. We will take over the management suite in August.”

Mr Pullen also said that QRE would be involved as a facilitator when the time came for the new tenants to start recruiting the up-to 1,500 people needed for a full-capacity Friars Walk.

He said they were already in contact with the local jobs centre and would host at least one open day when potential employees could come along and find out about all the jobs on offer from the various employers.

Since moving back to Newport, Mr Pullen has become involved with the Newport Now Business Improvement District. He was previously involved in a BID in Bath when he was centre manager for the QRE-built SouthGate development in the city and is keen to bring his experience from that project to the city.

He said: “I know Newport very well as I worked her previously about 20 years ago for about three years. It was a town when I was here before. Coming back it had a feeling of being a bit unloved. It was thriving before, there was lots going on. It was on a par with Cardiff but they have had money spent on redevelopment and retail and Newport did not.”

Mr Pullen is keen to see that impression of the city as being a bit unloved change, and sees the work of the BID as one way of turning this around.

Queensberry has also started planning for the opening of the eagerly-anticipated £90m retail and leisure scheme, which will bring numerous restaurants, a Debenhams and a Cineworld to the city centre along with a whole host of other retailers.

Marketing manager for Firars Walk, Victoria Holloway said: “People in the city want to get involved with this and we have had lots of people visiting the site from school visits and councillors. People are really keen to come and have a look and see how the development is progressing.”