£60m later "all in," the Metquarter is open and around two-thirds let. For many shopping centres, an occupancy figure like this at opening would be a concern. But John Milligan, Milligan's eponymous chief executive, says that a further 25 per cent is in the hands of solicitors or under negotiation and the remainder is being kept back in anticipation of deals with hard-to-get tenants.

This is fine providing you are working from a position of strength and to an extent, by opening two years ahead of Grosvenor's Liverpool One scheme, the remodelling of a 42-acre site in the city, the Metquarter has seized the initiative. This however is to confuse matters. The fact is that Liverpool One and the Metquarter look pretty much like polar opposites with very different shoppers.

Milligan in fact refuses to call the Metquarter a shopping centre, although it has all the diagnostic signs - a large enclosed spaced with public areas and a number of retail tenants - preferring instead the term "urban lifestyle centre." Cutting through the urban spin, this means that the Metquarter is aimed at Liverpool's upwardly mobile, providing an entrée for brands that have previously eschewed a city that has often been seen as Manchester's poor relation.

Compare this with the Grosvenor scheme - very definitely aimed at the mass market with branches of large chains and two major department stores. Both this and the Metquarter are shopping centres, but it is open to debate as to whether shoppers frequenting one will visit the other.

All of which notwithstanding, the Metquarter is evidence that Liverpool is on the way back towards becoming a retail destination. At 130,000 sq ft, this is not the largest centre you'll see this year, but it is probably the most upmarket, and the tenants that have taken space in it are counting on a Liverpudlian urban renaissance.

The other point about Milligan's Liverpool venture is that, owing to the Metquarter's less-than-prime location, it is relatively inexpensive. At £100-£120 psf Zone A it is roughly three times cheaper than space elsewhere in the city. Milligan must be hoping the scheme's tenants prosper. All the five to 10-year leases that the Metquarter's tenants have signed have a turnover element, meaning that if it meets expectations the money to offset the £60m construction cost should roll in.

For Liverpool as a whole, the tide is turning. There have lately been several articles asking whether it will be ready to be European Capital of Culture in 2008. Given however that much of what is taking place centres on keeping cash in the city rather than letting it flood out to neighbouring towns and cities, the Metquarter is the first sign that things are really on the way up.

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