Bluewater (shopping centre)

Coordinates: 51°26′23″N 0°16′16″E / 51.439639°N 0.271239°E

Bluewater Shopping Centre

Location	Stone, Greenhithe, Kent, England
Opening date	16 March 1999
Developer	Lend Lease
Management	Lend Lease Retail
Owner	Prudential plc (35%), Land Securities (30%), The Lend Lease Retail Partnership (25%), and Hermes (10%)[1]
Architect	Eric Kuhne
No. of stores and services	330
No. of anchor tenants	3 (M&S, House of Fraser & John Lewis)
Total retail floor area	1,675,955 ft^2 (155,700 m^2)
No. of floors	2/3 in parts
Parking	13,000 cars, 50 coaches
Website	http://www.bluewater.co.uk

Bluewater Shopping Centre (commonly referred to as Bluewater) is an out of town shopping centre in Stone (postally Greenhithe), Kent, England, outside the M25 Orbital motorway, 17.8 miles (28.6 km) east south-east of London's centre. Opened on 16 March 1999 in a former chalk quarry after three years of building, the site including car parks occupies 240 acres (97 ha) and has a sales floor area of 154,000 m² (1,600,000 ft²) over two levels, making it the fourth-largest shopping centre in the UK (after the MetroCentre, Trafford Centre and Westfield Stratford City). Elsewhere in Europe only Istanbul's Cevahir Mall and Vienna's (Vösendorf) Shopping City Süd are bigger. The floor plan is a triangular shape with 330 stores, including 3 anchors, 40 cafés and restaurants, and a 13-screen cinema. The centre employs 7,000 people and serves over 27 million visitors a year. A main rival is the Lakeside Shopping Centre and its two retail parks by road 8 miles (13 km) away in West Thurrock, Essex, just across the River Thames or 3.2 miles (5.1 km) point-to-point.

It is owned by four major UK institutions, Prudential plc and PRUPIM (35%), Land Securities (30%), the Lend Lease Retail Partnership (25%) and Hermes (10%).^[2]

History

Bluewater "Thames Walk"

In 1994, quarry operator Blue Circle approached Australian mall developer Lend Lease to form a partnership. Instead, Lend Lease bought the land and the project from Blue Circle, and under the leadership of its CEO Peter Walichnowski gathered a group of major investors, which included: Prudential, Barclays Mercantile, Hermes (acting for Britel), Lloyds Leasing, and Royal Bank Leasing. Lend Lease also formed a pool of minor investors, called the Lend Lease Retail Partnership, with 18 institutions and corporations.

John Lewis was the first major tenant to sign up in February 1995, albeit with major concessions, such as the offer of 300,000 sq ft (28,000 m²), one-fifth of the entire floor space, on three levels. This gave Bluewater credibility to sign more names, including the two other anchor stores: House of Fraser followed in June 1996 by Marks & Spencer. 90% of the retail space was committed by March 1998.

Construction, undertaken by Bovis Lend Lease,^[3] started on 1 May 1996. At its peak, the site employed 2,500 workers simultaneously. In all, 20,000 people worked 11.5 million hours on the construction of Bluewater. At the planned opening date, 16 March 1999, Bluewater was inaugurated with 99% of the shops open for business. The total cost of construction was around GBP £400 million.^[4]

In May 2005, Bluewater introduced a code of conduct to ban swearing, clothing that obscures the face (including hoods and baseball caps), and groups of more than five without the intention to shop.^[5][6] The policy has divided opinion, although Tony Blair did show support.^[6]

Redevelopments and expansions

With further expansion and development in the shopping centre industry since Bluewater's opening in 1999, perhaps most prominently the entry of Westfield London and Westfield Stratford City into the market, Bluewater has looked to make changes to its offering to keep the centre up to date and provide new and additional customer experiences. Numerous stores have been refurbished, expanded or relocated in recent years as the centre looks to expand and upgrade its mix of retailers, and there have been some major construction projects, mostly centred on the three leisure/dining 'villages', undertaken or proposed.

In late 2006, Dartford Borough Council granted planning permission for Bluewater to build a two-story events venue^[7] of 5200 m², and further extend the south side of the centre. Construction on the extension began in early 2010, and when completed in 2011 the expansion added more restaurants to the Plaza (formerly Water Circus) section, including a Jamie's Italian, Wagamamas and Browns. The new Glow events centre opened as part of the extension spans two floors, and has held events such as the BBC's Good Food Show: Spring. The events venue was developed alongside the existing entertainment provision in this area, the Showcase cinema which has been present in this area (initially as a Hoyts multiplex) since the opening of Bluewater.

During 2012, the Wintergarden food court area off Rose Gallery was extensively refurbished. Much of the food court was closed for part of the year to enable the work, with McDonalds notably unavailable at Bluewater throughout the period, though the Pizza Hut, Nando's restaurants to the far side of the area (by the centre entrance), and the Ponti's restaurant on the upper mall, remained open during the works. KFC relocated to Thames Walk to continue to trade during the development. When the Wintergarden works completed in October 2012, McDonalds, KFC and Harry Ramsden's returned to their post, along with several new food outlets, most significantly a new Giraffe restaurant which had been constructed adjacent to McDonalds. The previous large 'castle'-style McDonalds was replaced with a simple serving counter.^[8]

A proposal was put forward in early 2013 to expand the West Village dining and specialist retail area currently sited off the Guildhall. This currently comprises a Waterstones bookshop, a training and recruitment facility, and Costa Coffee shop on the upper mall, and on the lower mall a row of boutique retailers leading out to a suite of restaurants including Carluccio's, Pizza Express and Loch Fyne Restaurants amongst others. The proposal would see much of the existing infrastructure demolished and replaced with a new larger two-level 'specialist retail' area, similar to 'The Village' at Westfield London, with upmarket retail and restaurant facilities and mall access to both levels. Existing businesses would have to be relocated or removed from the centre to allow the works to go ahead.^[9][10]

A panoramic view of Bluewater Shopping Centre at dusk

Parking

There are over 13,000 free parking spaces, covered over six car parks.

Rose Gallery (formerly known as Green) is located next to John Lewis.

Guildhall (formerly known as Red) is located on the other side of John Lewis.

Plaza (formerly known as Yellow) is located next to House of Fraser.

Thames Walk (formerly known as Blue) is located next to Marks and Spencer.

Village (formerly known as Turquoise) is located outside House of Fraser.

Wintergarden (formerly known as Orange) is located Outside Marks and Spencer.

References

1. "Bluewater - Home". Retrieved 29 October 2014.
2. Bluewater | Corporate
3. Bovis' reputation is cornering the shopping market Contract Journal, 17 September 1997
4. Emma Dorreen, editor/project manager; Michael Evamy, writer (1999). Vision to Reality. London: Lend Lease. ISBN 0-9537054-0-4.
5. "BBC news-Bluewater introduces code of conduct". Retrieved 29 October 2014.
6. Booth, Jenny (12 May 2005). "Timesonline-Bluewater introduces code of conduct". The Times (London). Retrieved 15 April 2009.
7. "BBC news-events venue". Retrieved 29 October 2014.
8. ""Bluewater's Wintergarden reopens after multimillion-pound revamp", LunchBusiness, Oct 2012". Retrieved 29 October 2014.
9. ""Bluewater in huge expansion bid to create 1,500 jobs", KentOnline". Kent Online. Retrieved 29 October 2014.
10. Greater London Assembly planning report on West Village, PDF

External links

• Official website
• Bluewater on The Retail Database