"The market moved against us during the construction period," he admits. "Initially our target was to be 90 per cent leased, but then we thought 75 per cent would have been good. In the end we made 90 per cent after a late spurt of lettings."

But inevitably tenants have been playing hardball. "We've pushed rents up from where we thought we'd be," says Corser, "but the level of inducements has gone out." The original rental tone was £165 to £170 zone A, and the average now is £175 to £180 zone A, with some of the smaller units achieving £190.

"That's still reasonable value for such a wide-ranging catchment," says Corser. And if initial feedback is anything to go by, he looks to be right. 120,000 visitors passed through the centre's doors on opening day and 3,577 cars used the 1,271 parking spaces, with an average dwell time of three hours.

The Zara store passed its daily target after just two hours, and Starbucks passed its daily target at lunchtime. Both brands are new to Plymouth, so there is clearly a great deal of pent-up demand. Schuh described its trading performance as "off the scale." And Primark was 80 per cent up on target, with 4,500 units sold from its top 50 lines.

The fact that Primark is in the scheme at all is the result of one of the darker moments in the long saga of Drake Circus. In January 2005, with construction well under way, Drake Circus lost one of its two anchors when the Allders department store group went into administration.

Allders had been committed to take 120,000 sq ft trading over three floors, and its withdrawal left a big hole in the scheme. But Corser and his letting agents, Lunson Mitchenall and Hartnell Taylor Cook, moved quickly to plug the gap.

The department store space was split horizontally in two, and extended to four levels by opening up space at lower ground floor level with its own entrance off Exeter Street. The upper two levels, totalling 64,500 sq ft, were leased to Next and the lower two, providing 65,500 sq ft, to Primark.

Managing agent Donaldsons has recruited Mike Jones, formerly manager of the Marks & Spencer store that is the centre's other anchor, as the mall's general manager. And he's absolutely convinced that Primark is right for the scheme. "Plymouth has a real value mentality," he says. "At M&S the summer and winter Sales were always the best in the region."

Marks & Spencer has extended its Plymouth store from 40,000 to 120,000 sq ft to anchor Drake Circus. The store has direct access from the car parks, but significantly no pay machine so shoppers have to visit the rest of the mall before returning to their cars.

The mall itself has two levels, with two of the MSUs - H&M and Zara - trading on both. The others - Virgin, Boots and Waterstone's - trade on the lower level only.

In the weeks leading up to opening ten more retailers signed up for smaller units with Monsoon Accessorize, Office, La Senza, Republic, Dr China, Build-a-Bear Workshop, Claire's Accessories, Natural World and local electrical retailer ETS all joining the line-up.

That leaves four units on the lower ground floor, three on the upper ground floor and three kiosks still to let. "We're reasonably confident they'll be gone by early next year," says Corser.

And in 2007 he'll have more space to offer to the market just round the corner in New George Street. As part of the deal to attract Boots into a 28,500-sq ft unit, P&O agreed to buy its existing store, and now that the retailer has relocated work is about to begin to break the store up into eight units which will be available from Summer 2007.

"We're not branding it as Drake Circus Phase II," says Corser, "because there's no real physical connection with the centre. But we have sold the investment on to MSREF."

He's confident the new units will let as well as the main mall. "Plymouth's problem was the range of its offer," he says. "It hadn't moved on for 30 years and it was crying out for quality units in a range of sizes."

And already there are signs that Drake Circus has acted as a catalyst to new development. For instance the university's new arts centre is now going up directly opposite the centre.

"This scheme has ticked a lot of boxes for Plymouth," Corser concludes. "We now have a real chance to stop the £400m which used to leak out of the local economy every year."

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