Union Square, Aberdeen: Shops, Parking, Opening Times and How to Get There

The centre at Guild Square that the railway station and the bus station both run through, which is why its published hours start at 6am and say nothing about when the shops trade. Marks and Spencer rebuilt here in 2025, IKEA is supposed to be moving in, and the £200m extension has been in limbo since 2022. Here is what the operator publishes, where it contradicts itself, and what Lone Star has never said.

Last checked 5 September 2026 · Opening times and store lists change — check with the centre before travelling.

Union Square sits at Guild Square in the centre of Aberdeen, AB11 5RG, and it is unusual among British shopping centres in one way: the railway station and the bus station are reached through it. That single fact shapes almost everything else on this page — the opening hours, the footfall, the parking, and why the building is open at six in the morning.

It opened on 29 October 2009, took 58,000 shoppers through the doors in its first eight hours, and cost £275m in the end — a figure that had been £100m when the scheme was first costed in 1998, £120m by December that year and £160m by April 2005. It was twelve years from the first plans to opening day, and about five years late.

Hammerson does not own it any more and a great deal of the internet has not caught up. An affiliate of the Lone Star Real Estate Fund bought Union Square for £111m, contracts exchanged in February 2024 with completion expected by the end of March. It was an 8% discount to the December valuation, at an 11% net initial yield, part of Hammerson's disposal of non-core assets. No entity is named and no percentage is published anywhere. Anything describing Hammerson as the current owner is out of date.

The centre publishes a good deal — and contradicts itself in the process. Its website and its own October 2024 leasing brochure give completely different parking numbers, and its opening-hours page publishes building access times that are not shop trading times. We have printed every version and said where each came from.

Two things here are most likely to have changed by the time you read them: whether IKEA has actually opened in the former Decathlon unit, and whether anything at all has happened to the £200m extension. Both are flagged where they appear.

Aberdeen has lacked, until now, new, well proportioned retail space… It is no longer necessary to travel to Glasgow and Edinburgh for a first class shopping experience.

The essentials

Opening times

There are five different sets of opening hours in circulation and none can be dismissed. Start with the trap: the operator's homepage and its own opening-hours page both say 6am to 11pm Monday to Saturday and 7.45am to 11pm on Sunday, and those are the times quoted all over the internet as the centre's hours. They are building access times. The railway and bus stations are reached through the site, so the building opens at six in the morning. No shop is trading at six in the morning.

The operator's actual shop-hours listing publishes nothing. It is a widget assembled in the browser and it renders empty for a reader like ours. So the trading times above come from three other places: UK Malls, a third-party directory; Next's own store page; and H&M's own store page, which is server-rendered and turned out to be a second reliable route into a centre's hours. All three are printed. None has been picked as the answer.

One gap is deliberate. Next's own page gave a Sunday closing time of 7pm on one reading and 9pm on another — same page, two passes. We have left that cell blank rather than print a guess.

No Scottish public holiday hours are published by anyone, and that includes 2 January, which in Scotland is the one that catches visitors out. Boots' own store page returned an access error and Cineworld's daily times could not be found on any page we reached. If your trip depends on a holiday opening, phone 01224 254300.

Getting there

By road

Use AB11 5RG. This is a case where the operator publishes genuinely nothing: its "Getting Here" page says the centre "couldn't be easier" to reach and links to Google Maps. It names no road of any kind — no A90, no A96, no Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route. So this page names none either. It is a city-centre site by the harbour; follow signs for the railway station.

Parking — and the operator's own contradiction

The operator gives two different sets of parking numbers, both its own. The website says 1,200 spaces at Union Square — 54 disabled bays, 31 family bays — plus 456 at College Street with 6 disabled bays. The owner's October 2024 leasing brochure breaks it down as surface 376, College Street 693 and multi-storey 826, 1,895 in total. Those cannot both describe the same estate. Parkopedia's 376 matches the brochure's surface number exactly, which suggests it has picked up one car park and labelled it the site; it does not say so.

The tariff, effective from 13 November 2025:

• Union Square: £4.00 for up to an hour, rising by band to £20.40 for 7 to 24 hours. Flat £3.00 between 6pm and 4am.
• College Street: £3.30 up to £11.00 for a day. Flat £2.50 in the evening.

It is a ticketless ANPR system — your plate is read on the way in and you pay by card or contactless on the way out. No cash is accepted.

Height limits are 2.3m in the multi-storey and 2.1m at College Street. The operator and AccessAble agree on both figures. Parkopedia says there is no restriction; two agreeing sources beat one, and we have printed theirs.

Electric cars

There is Pod Point charging here — 5 devices, 10 Type 2 sockets at 7kW, 35p per kWh — on the first level of the multi-storey, on the left as you come up the ramp. That comes from Zapmap, updated 16 July 2025, and PlugShare corroborates it. It is worth knowing precisely where because the operator's own parking page does not mention EV charging at all.

By train and bus — through the centre

This is the defining feature of the site. Aberdeen railway station and Aberdeen bus station are both reached through Union Square. That is documented — oddly — by NorthLink Ferries rather than by the centre, which does not spell it out on any page we could read. NorthLink also puts the ferry terminal at under a ten-minute walk.

The bus station was rebuilt in February 2008 as part of the same development, replacing the 1963 terminus, and is Stagecoach-run.

Accessibility

The published picture is partial, and one part of it is a real problem:

• The multi-storey car park is the accessible way in — step-free. College Street has a ramp.
• The payment machines are not wheelchair-accessible at any of the three car parks. AccessAble states this plainly. Since the system is card-on-exit, plan for it.
• Blue badge bay counts do not agree. AccessAble counts 14, 15 and 5 across the three car parks — 34 in total. The operator claims 54 at the main car park alone.
• The operator lists a Shopmobility service, family rooms, Collect+ and Amazon lockers.
• Changing Places provision and hearing loops are unknown. AccessAble's mall-floor and bus-station guides would not load for us, and those are where that information would be.

The shops

Store counts run three ways — 91 in one source, "over 60 shops" in around 80 units in another, and 50 shops plus 30 restaurants in a third. Nobody publishes a directory count we can verify, so all three are in the table above. The big units are Marks and Spencer, a 10-screen Cineworld (reported as 2,300 seats by one source and 2,400 by another) and the 203-room Leonardo Hotel, which was a Jurys Inn.

Marks and Spencer rebuilt here — and did not leave Aberdeen

This is the story most likely to be reported wrongly. On 11 April 2025 M&S opened an 18,900 sq ft foodhall with a coffee shop and menswear at Union Square, and by summer 2025 had built that out to a full-line 97,300 sq ft store, of which 48,000 sq ft is clothing, home and beauty. Luke Smith, the store manager, and Rachel Rankine, regional manager for the north of Scotland, both spoke about it on M&S's own corporate newsroom.

That opening coincided with M&S closing its 80-year-old store in the St Nicholas Centre — a different centre entirely. The company moved within Aberdeen; it did not leave. Any account that reads as "M&S closes in Aberdeen" is describing half the transaction.

IKEA — announced, not confirmed open

IKEA is moving from Altens into the former Decathlon unit, with a fit-out reported at around £1m, and closing its Wellington Circle collection point in the process. The target date slipped from spring 2026 to summer 2026, per a statement reported on 28 April 2026 and attributed only to an unnamed spokesperson, which is why it is not quoted here. As at 5 September 2026 there is no confirmation it has opened and no revised date. This is the single most likely thing on this page to be out of date — check before you travel for it.

What arrived

Victoria's Secret, Mango, Crew Clothing, Greggs, The Entertainer, Wingstop, Maki + Ramen, the TFG brands Hobbs, Whistles, Phase Eight and Inside Story, plus Jo Malone, Lush and Seasalt — all undated. TK Maxx relocated within the mall. Schuh opened on 15 May 2026 in the former Bensons unit after a £600,000 refit, closing its St Nicholas Street shop the day before.

What left

2025 was a heavy year:

• Fat Face — 25 January 2025, after ten years here, its only Aberdeen shop
• Clarks — September 2025, after 16 years, trading here since opening day. The nearest Clarks is now Dundee. The Entertainer took the unit.
• Decathlon — 16 November 2025, after five years. The nearest is around 130 miles away in Edinburgh. IKEA is taking the unit.
• Bensons for Beds — 22 November 2025. Schuh took the unit.
• Singh Street, Subway, Superdry, Hollister, Quiz and Mozza also went during 2025
• BrewDog and Estabulo closed in 2026

Bon Accord, St Nicholas, Trinity, Berryden and Kittybrewster are separate Aberdeen destinations, not part of Union Square. The St Nicholas confusion matters most, because that is where the M&S store that closed in 2025 was.

Useful to know

The 6am hours are not shop hours

If you have read that Union Square opens at 6am, that is the building, not the shops. The rail and bus stations run through the site, so the doors open early for travellers. Shops start around 9am on every source that gives trading times.

Card only, and check the roofline

Parking is ticketless ANPR with card or contactless payment on exit and no cash accepted at all. The multi-storey is limited to 2.3 metres and College Street to 2.1 metres, so a roof box or a van body needs thinking about before you arrive. From 6pm to 4am Union Square is a flat £3.00 and College Street a flat £2.50 — if you are here for the cinema or dinner rather than shopping, park after six.

Accessible parking — one specific warning

The multi-storey is the step-free way in and College Street has a ramp, but the payment machines are not wheelchair-accessible at any of the three car parks, per AccessAble. Blue badge bay numbers are disputed too: AccessAble counts 34 across all three, the operator claims 54 at the main car park alone. And we cannot tell you whether there is a Changing Places toilet or a hearing loop, because AccessAble's mall-floor and bus-station guides would not load. The operator does list Shopmobility, family rooms, Collect+ and Amazon lockers.

Two things to check, and one nice one

Check whether IKEA has opened in the old Decathlon unit — announced, slipped from spring to summer 2026, unconfirmed as at 5 September 2026 — and whether anything has happened to the £200m extension, on which see the history below. On the good side, NorthLink Ferries puts the ferry terminal at under a ten-minute walk, useful if you are heading for Orkney or Shetland with a few hours to fill.

How it got here

Union Square is built on the Guild Street goods yard, opened in 1850 to link the original Guild Street station to the docks. It became a Railtrack freightliner depot and was closed by British Rail in the 1970s. The 19.4-acre site left behind was described as "Britain's most undeveloped city-centre site", and it took a very long time to stop being one.

Plans were unveiled in 1997, and the council approved a scheme in 1999 over objections from the Chamber of Commerce, the Harbour Board, Bon Accord and John Lewis. In 2000 Donald Dewar, as First Minister, approved it, and Councillor Len Ironside called it "super news for the city". A land dispute was settled at the Scottish Land Tribunal in 2001. By 2003 Ironside was calling the state of Guild Street "disgraceful", and in April 2005 Alan Bell, director of property, blamed "the morass of railway regulations" for the delay. Multiplex backed the scheme in 2006, foundations went in during March 2007 — five years late — and in June 2008 the council's proposal to rename the area "Guild Square" was rejected by the developer.

It opened on 29 October 2009, with 58,000 people through the doors in eight hours, at a final cost of £275m against the £100m first costed in 1998. The bus station had been rebuilt the previous February. For anyone researching the buildings: Historic Environment Scotland and Canmore hold entries for the adjacent railway station and bus station, and nothing designating anything inside the site.

The ownership chain, and the deal that did not happen

Hammerson developed and owned Union Square. In August 2022, Brookfield — the owner of Canary Wharf — was named preferred bidder at £140m. That deal evidently never completed and no source anywhere says why.

What did complete came eighteen months later. CoStar reported the centre in talks at around £110m on a 12% yield with NatWest financing, noting that Lone Star had exited UK shopping centres about five years earlier. The deal that followed was £111m to an affiliate of the Lone Star Real Estate Fund, contracts exchanged in February 2024 with completion expected by the end of March — an 8% discount to the December valuation, at an 11% net initial yield, part of Hammerson's non-core disposals.

No entity has ever been named and no ownership percentage has ever been published, and no asset manager is identified: the contact page names only "Union Square Management". So the honest description of the owner is the one in the table — an affiliate of a fund, and nothing more precise.

The £200m extension, which has been in limbo for four years

A proposal of application in principle was submitted in February 2016 for a £200m extension: around 30 extra shops, a 120-bed hotel, an expanded cinema, and the enclosing of the outdoor retail element. Of the two design themes consulted on, "Aberdeen's Maritime Heritage" beat "The Granite City and its Harbour".

It was reported as approved in 2018, the deadline was extended in September 2021, and by August 2022 its future was being described as unclear, with Hammerson saying it had "nothing to add". And then nothing at all.

We looked in the places it ought to appear. It is absent from the owner's own October 2024 leasing brochure and from a detailed 29 May 2026 Press and Journal round-up of arrivals and closures here. Lone Star has never said anything about it, and we could not retrieve a planning reference for it or for the original scheme. It is not built and it has not been abandoned, at least not publicly — and that has been the whole of the story since 2022.