Property Breakfast
Nottingham's answer to Birmingham's Bullring is its £3400m Broadmarsh redevelopment. The man behind the scheme updated leading property players on its progress at our breakfast at Nottingham's Royal Moat House Hotel
read on....
As David Leonard, head of design at global shopping centre player Westfield, and the man driving forward the redevelopment of Nottingham's historic Broadmarsh centre, began by reminding us, these are very exciting times in the regeneration game.
"It is great to see all our cities regenerating, often on the back of retail and city centre living. There is a ripple effect being felt up and down the country."
Leonard's employer is one of those causing the ripples. Australian giant Westfield made clear its confidence in the UK retail industry when it snapped up a string of UK shopping centres in 2000, including Derby's Eagle Centre and Broadmarsh in the East Midlands.
Leonard added: "Westfield regards the UK economy as a very strong one where retail sales are very strong and where we have seen real growth of 4 per cent per year for the last eight years. More recently the UK has been averaging 5 per cent growth plus over the last few years. This is the positive message that Westfield are telling to analysts around the globe."
Westfield will actually kick off its plans in the UK with the redevelopment of the Eagle Centre in Derby, which is due to go on site later this year. Other planning permissions gained in the UK include Swindon's Brunel Centre and the redevelopment of Guildford's shopping offer.
But Broadmarsh is clearly one of the prize schemes, being as it is one of the biggest retail developments in the UK (indeed even slightly bigger than the Bullring when completed).
Little wonder when the main catchment area for Nottingham is just over 500,000 people, while there is a total catchment of almost a million people within a 20km radius of the city centre. "Retail spending is £34.1bn a year in the catchment area, spend per head is slightly higher than the UK average, and unemployment is extremely low. The fundamentals are excellent."
Leonard added that he didn't foresee any clash between Westfield's proposals for Derby and Nottingham. "It is interesting to see how the catchment areas of Derby and Nottingham work. The M1 is a real physical divide between the two. Only 5 per cent of people who go shopping in Nottingham live within the Derby catchment area, while only 7 per cent of Derby customers live within the Nottingham catchment. There is a fairly small overlap."
However, despite Nottingham's well-known credentials as a retail mecca, Leonard said there was no room for complacency given the extent to which other cities have considerably raised their game in recent years.
"If you look at the current UK rankings by Experian, Nottingham comes out as the fifth-best retail destination. However, only three years ago it was coming third and other cities such as Birmingham have been big risers. It shows why and how all our cities need to keep on their toes and ensure retail, living and work offers are attractive to people because we are all so very mobile nowadays. Competition is increasing all the time."
Leonard, who joined Westfield four years ago after cutting his teeth with Benoy Architects and working on schemes such as Brindleyplace and the Bullring in Birmingham and Bluewater in Kent, said he planned to take Broadmarsh up from its present 50,000 sq m retail space to 120,000 sq m. On top of that the firm would build 3,000 car park spaces, a new bus station and a tram interchange to connect with Nottingham's new tram network.
Leonard added that the scheme would also help cement the city's north-south retail offer. "Before the industrial revolution the street plan was east-west in the city. When the Victorians came along they made the canal out of marsh, put in railway stations in the south and north and manufactured strong north-south routes, creating more of a grid. With this development we can see Nottingham becoming a very neat diagram with a strong commercial retail core running north to south, while its cultural trail runs from east to west."
However, Leonard conceded that the challenges faced in developing a 26-acre slice of a city centre were huge. "There is a lot that needs to be done to the south side of the city to allow the full regeneration potential of the south to happen. The first thing is to clear much of the site around the Broadmarsh and sort the road system out. It is one of the worst stretches of road that we all know."
Another major cornerstone of the work will involve unblocking Listergate. "There is a lot in the way. We need to relocate some of the units and stores there to allow the whole area to open up properly. One of the most important things for us to do is to re-engage the canal and the railway station back through Listergate and up to Market Square. Bringing that north-south route back into play is one of the main aspirations of the city council for the whole redevelopment of the area."
However, the timetable for reaching those aspirations has been put back. Leonard revealed under questioning from the audience that after gaining outline planning permission for the scheme in December 2002 he had originally hoped to get a date for a compulsory purchase order (CPO)/road closure inquiry by this summer, but now said that a date towards the end of year was more realistic. "Once we all get through that we can get on site in 2005. At the moment we are in that hiatus period of dealing with CPOs and road closures. Once that is all through it all becomes much more real."
In terms of content one can expect many of the features of the Bullring to be incorporated into the scheme, Leonard added. Aside from features such as glass roofs and the fact that the site slopes significantly - just like the Bullring - there is of course the subject of an iconic building in the mould of a Selfridges. One of the site's two main department stores will be based in the landmark south west corner of the scheme.
"This new store is one of the most important pieces within the jigsaw of the whole design with the intention to create a really prominent landmark," said Leonard. "It will be side on to a new public space and will be seen from both the Castle, when driving by, and when walking from the railway station. It will also be designed so that it catches sunlight most of the day." When later asked if the building could be as iconic as the Bullring Selfridges, Leonard replied: "There is absolutely no reason why not."
A global player
Westfield a is global shopping centre giant based in Sydney, Australia, and recently announced plans to merge its various Westfield entities to create the world's largest property trust. One of the unique features of the company is that a lot of the disciplines associated with retailing are represented in house. As Leonard remarked: "We act as developer, architect, builder, property manager, fund manager, M&E specialist and marketer - that is quite unusual." Globally Westfield manages or owns 123 shopping centres, 39 of which are in Australia, 11 in New Zealand, 66 in America and seven in the UK. The firm now has £313.8bn worth of assets under management, which translates into 95 million sq ft of retail globally with 19,500 retailers. Some 800 million shoppers visit a Westfield centre at some point every year.
For the fuller picture,
subscribe to Insider
every month.
