COMMENT It was almost five years ago that the then mayor of London Boris Johnson – whatever happened to him? – stood shoulder to shoulder with Westfield’s Michael Gutman and Hammerson’s David Atkins to announce a breakthrough in their long-held ambition to redevelop Croydon’s Whitgift Centre.
This week there was another breakthrough: the council granted outline consent for the £1.4bn project.
It has been a long wait, yet still key questions remain unanswered.
I should declare an interest: I spent many of my most formative years working Saturday jobs in the centre’s then much admired retail offer. My expertise did not help Allders, Olympus Sport and Chelsea Man survive. Neither would my shifts at Topman in the late 1980s have moved the needle for Philip Green’s retail empire.
But it does mean the Whitgift Centre’s story is one I have watched perhaps more closely than any other over the years.
So what are those unanswered questions?
The deal for a new anchor is done, but its name unconfirmed, says Westfield UK’s head of development, John Burton. Will it be one which fulfils John Lewis’s long-held desire to open in the town centre?
Confirmation either way would say as much about Whitgift’s revised offer as it does about the retailer’s belief in new department stores.
And, yes, the second question is what will the centre be called?
Burton says the jv partners are working out a name for it.
But even the chair of the planning committee calls it Westfield Croydon. (He did correct himself, it should be said.)
2018 will see Hammerson and Westfield complete the land drawdown, hold discussions with retailers and complete its detailed designs. The pair said this was likely to take up most of 2018. Work won’t begin before 2019. And, yes, they will resolve the name.
Westfield Croydon is undoubtedly the most powerful calling card. Will it happen? My hunch is it will. What that would mean for the parties involved is less clear.
It might be what is needed to capitalise on, as Hammerson’s retail director Robin Dobson said this week, “the huge loyalty that exists in and around Croydon to bring it back to the place it used to be 20-plus years ago”.
Many parties will be watching closely how all this pans out over the next 12 months. It has prompted me to ask myself another question: should I make myself available for Saturday shifts at Westfield Croydon’s John Lewis?
There was no shortage of spice at this week’s EG Residential Summit in Birmingham.
In the red corner, the public sector was snarling.
If only the private sector was more honest in its viability assessments the planning process would speed up. Only the public sector cares about standards in housebuilding.
In the blue corner sat the private sector, ready to come out fighting.
Left to the public sector, placemaking would repeat the horrific mistakes of the past.
Those were all views aired on Thursday, though they probably (hopefully) weren’t fully representative of either party.
It does, however, highlight that, for all the great strides made in collaboration in recent years, there is still some way to go. Enjoy, more than the anecdotes above, our latest Collaborators supplement with this week’s issue of EG.
To send feedback, e-mail damian.wild@egi.co.uk or tweet @DamianWild or @estatesgazette
