The 1m sq ft first phase of Grosvenor’s Liverpool One opens today, the first tranche of more than 13.4m sq ft of shopping space set to open in the UK between now and the end of 2009.
The £1bn scheme – which has already cost the Duke of Westminster’s property company £189m more than anticipated – will be officially opened later this morning.
The first phase is anchored by department stores John Lewis and Debenhams, with around 80 other stores – of which 20 are empty.
The second phase – 600,000 sq ft of shops on the eastern part of the 42-acre site, as well as a new 14-screen Odeon cinema, restaurant units and park area – will open on 30th September.
The equivalent of more than eight Bluewaters are scheduled to open in the UK over the next 18 months, according to the European Shopping Centre Development report from Cushman & Wakefield – the highest figure since it began monitoring development in 1965.
Boris van Haare Heijmeijer, head of European retail sevices at C&W, said: “A small number of schemes in the UK have been postponed because of funding or pricing issues, but apart from this there is little evidence across the rest of Europe that the credit crunch has affected development pipelines.”
Head of development consultancy Alistair Parker added: “This new level of new town centre openings reflects both the favourable financial market when these schemes were in gestation and a structural shift in in both government policy and consumer demand. These new schemes are bringing life and vitality back into city centres and none more so than in Liverpool with Grosvenor’s Liverpool One.”
