Southside Wandsworth
Total retail floor area 606,000 sq ft (56,300 m2)[1] | | |
No. of floors | 2 | |
---|---|---|
Parking | 1180 spaces | |
Website | southsidewandsworth |
Southside Wandsworth is a shopping centre in the district of Wandsworth in London, England. When it was built it was the largest indoor shopping centre in Europe and is currently the fifth largest indoor shopping centre in London after Westfield Stratford City, Westfield London, the Whitgift Centre and Brent Cross Shopping Centre.
Overview
Southside opened in 1971 as the Wandsworth Arndale Centre, and was the largest of the UK-wide chain of Arndale Centres with 110 shops. It occupies much of the town centre of Wandsworth, with five blocks of apartments above and the River Wandle running beneath, in a culvert. It initially included a mix of shops, offices and restaurants, as well as a market traders hall, although the latter has since been redeveloped. At one point it also housed a large nightclub, which closed in 2002.
The centre suffered a notable decline in the 1980s and 1990s, before being extensively renovated and relaunched in 2004.[2]
The shopping centre is
A large branch of
Occupying 606,000 square feet (56,300 m2) of space,[1] Southside remains one of London's largest shopping centres in terms of its ground floor square footage and currently attracts around 8.5 million visitors a year.[3] Redevelopment of the eastern section of the centre fronting Garratt Lane was completed in October 2015, with a £40 million project involving the demolition of office accommodation and the creation of a further 220,000 square feet (20,000 m2) of retail space.
Stores
The centre is split into three indoor malls plus a street-frontage along Garratt Lane.
- The south mall contains a large .
- The central mall contains a number of large stores including and Office.
- The north mall contains a .
- The Garratt Lane frontage contains branches of McDonald's and Wagamama.
Notable former retailers include
History
The site now occupied by the shopping centre was previously the Wandsworth Greyhound Stadium (which seated 20,000) and the Upper Mill (a large flour mill, damaged by fire in the 1920s and demolished in 1964).
Although initially successful (helped by being located at the junction of several major roads including the
However, Wandsworth was by the 1990s seeing extensive gentrification, and it was clear that the centre was in a particularly strategic location, with a large and prosperous ABC1 population on the centre's doorstep – many of whom were choosing to shop further away due to the lack of retail facilities on their doorstep. To be successful, major national clothing retailers rather than discount stores, physical improvements and a complete relaunch would be needed to provide Wandsworth town centre with a neighbourhood shopping centre that would be attractive to the population of the area.
Work therefore began to extensively refurbish and extend the complex in 2000. This included the complete demolition and reconstruction of the southern end of the structure, to add a new 860-space
This redevelopment was followed by construction of a 23-storey residential development at the southern end of the complex by Barratt Developments. Wandsworth Borough Council refurbished the existing residential apartment blocks in 2003/4.[12] The name of the centre was temporarily changed from Wandsworth Arndale Centre to the Wandsworth Shopping Centre, before finally being branded as Southside in 2004.
Renovation and redevelopment
Southside is now owned by Landsec Investment Firms. The centre continues to be redeveloped.
In February 2010, work started to reconfigure the northern end of the centre,
Further development of Southside has taken place in two phases. The most recently completed phase has involved the demolition and replacement of the centre's dilapidated eastern frontage along Garratt Lane to create 20,000 feet (6,100 m) of new shopfronts.[14] In 2014, the Arndale Walk part of the centre was demolished, to create a 82,000 square feet (7,600 m2) department store unit and four additional retail units fronting Garratt Lane and four units on the junction of Garratt Lane and Wandsworth High Street. It was announced in October 2012 that the department store unit was let to Debenhams. [15]
Debenhams closed in January 2020, soon after the company went into administration, and was subsequently replaced by an amusement centre with an indoor electric go-karting track.[5]
Relocation of the Wandsworth branch of Jobcentre Plus (which occupied a four-storey office building above Arndale Walk, that needed to be demolished as part of the second stage of the redevelopment) proved to be controversial, with few alternative locations available, and opposition to the possibility of it being moved to a residential area in Southfields.[16]
In January 2024, it was announced that a new Lidl supermarket would open in the centre by summer 2024 due to a 'lack of accessible discount supermarkets' in the area. [17]
Ownership and financing
In the 1990s the centre was owned by Fordgate Wandsworth Limited (a large property company who at the time owned similar developments including the Pallasades Shopping Centre in Birmingham), and ultimately by property investors Moises and Mendi Gertner. Conscious that the value of the centre was declining, with the departure of both Sainsbury's and Tesco, and declining customer footfall, in 1993 they gained outline planning permission for a 10-screen cinema, expected to cost around £6.5m. The multiplex cinema would later become one of the first branches of Cineworld, whose Chief Executive, Steve Wiener had long known Mr Gertner.[18]
In 2000, before construction work began on the redevelopment, Fordgate sold the centre to Portfolio Holdings Limited, a UK property company formed in 1993 which had concluded several town centre developments. Their majority shareholder was the Apollo organisation which managed several large property investment funds, based in the US. They acquired the lease of the Arndale Centre for £40 million with the aim of implementing the planning consents for a multiplex cinema, health club and associated retail units, with some modifications to the detailing, particularly to the mall entrances, mall finishes and lighting. Their financing came from German private bank
Portfolio used a limited partnership, Wandsworth LP, as a specific investment vehicle for the development. Wandsworth LP was effectively a joint venture between Portfolio Holdings, Apollo Real Estate Advisors and Deutsche Bank Real Estate's Global Opportunities Fund, and was used in order to meet the preference of their American shareholders for tax transparency.
Between 2000 and 2004 Wandsworth LP implemented a £75m investment in the refurbishment of the centre. The first phase was the construction of a health club on the Buckhold Road frontage (let to Virgin Active, now Nuffield Health), and securing conditional agreement for a 35,000 sq ft branch of Waitrose (who signed the agreement to lease in December 2001 as the first 'new' anchor tenant, and opened in 2004). They obtained a revised planning permission in 2002 for a larger and more extensive redevelopment than the previous Fordgate Wandsworth project, which included a 36,000 sq ft branch of Primark, an increase in the size of the cinema to 14 screens, as well as the demolition and reconstruction of the southern end of the centre including retail space and the multistorey car park, and a comprehensive refurbishment of the interior of the centre (aside from Arndale Walk), and implemented these plans over the following two years.
On 11 August 2005, Wandsworth LP sold the centre to Metro Shopping Fund for £188 million. The Metro Shopping Fund is a 50:50 joint venture between
References
- ^ a b "Our impact in Southside" (PDF). Landsec.
- ^ Southside Wandsworth - Welcome
- ^ Land Securities portfolio - - Southside Shopping Centre
- ^ Beevers, Angela (19 May 2023). "Søstrene Grene launches first store in the capital". The Retail Bulletin. Retrieved 26 November 2023.
- ^ a b Bayley, Sian (18 December 2020). "Debenhams Wandsworth store to be converted into amusement centre with go-karting track". South London Press. Retrieved 26 November 2023.
- ^ Martin, Alan (25 July 2023). "Amazon closes three checkout-free Fresh stores in London". Evening Standard. Retrieved 26 November 2023.
- ^ "First Amazon Fresh till-less grocery store in UK closes". BBC News. 24 July 2023. Retrieved 26 November 2023.
- ^ Wandsworth Council - Heritage Walk Archived 5 September 2008 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ a b Middleton, Christopher (4 April 2001). "Centre Shifts". The Guardian.
- ^ "Obituaries - Arnold Hagenbach". The Times. 8 April 2005.
- ^ Moran, Joe (12 March 2007). "The secrets of indoor shopping". New Statesman.
- ^ Wandsworth Council - Regeneration of the Arndale Centre Archived 9 May 2008 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Transforming Southside - Lettings and development map Archived 25 September 2008 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Wandsworth Planning - Garratt Lane redevelopment Archived 6 October 2008 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Turnbull, Helen (25 October 2012). "Debenhams to open store in Wandsworth". Drapers. Retrieved 26 November 2023.
- ^ Trueman, James (13 February 2011). "Fresh concerns over Southfields job centre". Wandsworth Guardian. Retrieved 26 November 2023.
- ^ "Lidl set to open new store in Wandsworth shopping centre". Your Local Guardian. 16 January 2024. Retrieved 27 January 2024.
- ^ Eade, Christine (16 September 2011). "Cineworld's Steve Wiener: Welcome to my world". Property Week.