It does seem quite a major refurb going on - all the shelving and fridge units had been stripped out when I went past yesterday.
(Attached image shows large grey hoarding in front of Sainsburys)
Sainsbury's White Rose has also had a refurb, with new chiller units. It could be a rolling programme of refurbs, but they might also take the opportunity to redesign the internals for the coronavirus era.
The problem was that Leeds 1st at the turn of the century didn’t do enough for the future. All improvements made were needed at the time but in the intervening years uplifts in service have caused no end of capacity issues.
Whilst the west end capacity was increased nothing was done at the east end. Although near impossible to increase it between the station and Neville Hill it is possible further east so hopefully this will eventually be scoped in with TRU.
Platform capacity needs improving further. Platform 0 and the associated track and signal works (still ongoing) solve the west end bay problem but what is really needed is at least one more through platform and the solution oft mooted and certainly looked at in the past by NR is joining platforms 13 & 14 together (some people on another thread would no doubt suggest clogging it up with 10 car voyagers for hours on end).
Just a shame part of the lower floor of City House couldn’t be taken over (rented) to allow them to have built a higher roof over the concourse and create a mezzanine level like Man Pic or Kings Cross. It might have allowed a higher quality of food outlet too rather than the garbage from McDonalds, subway, KFC et al.
Parkinson's General Law says that everything expands to fill the space available to it.
Leeds 1st did the job for the services on offer at the time, but we now have more TPE services, twice as many using P17, half-hourly to London, etc.
If you were planning Leeds 1st in 1995 for service levels in 2015 you might well take over all of the former Wellington platforms, re-jig PP13 to 17 so that there was a dedicated avoiding line through what is now P17 (my least favourite platform at Leeds), widen the throat to eight instead of six and widen the footbridge. Of course, Leeds 1st was scaled for the funds available, which still ran out (hence no southern entrance until it became much harder to fit it in), no dedicated line out for Sheffield services instead of making it share with TPE departures on F.
I did wonder, when I saw the original Masterplan plans six or seven years ago, why they didn't swap the ticket and travel offices with Boots. You could have a dedicated gate out for people who didn't have a ticket, instead of having to issue a ticket that went straight into a gate (just pay up and someone will let you out). First Class access for passengers would be there as well, possibly access to the Network Rail office without having to pass through the gateline. But then I realised that there wouldn't be any passing trade, which is why you pass shops to go buy tickets and then pass other shops to get to your train.
All that said: Leeds is an amalgam of two stations built by competing companies on arches of different heights. The fact it works at all is a minor miracle! A bit of colour wouldn't go amiss through...