Thousands of people turned up to the official opening of the Westfield Stratford City shopping centre last Tuesday 13 September.
This is Europe’s largest urban shopping mall, which is situated next to the Olympic Park, and will be providing the main access to the site for London’s long awaited Olympic Games in 2012. The commercial property also consists of large screens along its walkways, which will be used to display the main Olympic events as well as news and travel updates.
This 1.45 billion new shopping centre consists of a wide range of commercial properties; 70 restaurants, three hotels, a 14 inch cinema screen, a bowling facility and UK’s largest casino, as well as 300 retail shops, which includes top brands such as Marks & Spencer, John Lewis, Waitrose, Forever 21, Top Shop, Next, Apple, Prada, Hollister, Nike and Hugo Boss.
Andy Street, Managing Director of John Lewis, who has anchored the scheme with a 260,000 sq ft store said, “We are not investing for one year. We are investing for 50 years and probably more. We are very confident that Stratford will become the natural retail destination for this part of London.”
One of the shoppers, who started queuing outside the shopping centre from the early hours of the day, said “The centre will bring the community together. The range of shops is diverse but it is all under one roof”.
The UK’s popular TV presenters, Nick Grimshaw and Pixie Geldof hosted the opening ceremony, while a number of new songs were performed by the US pop star Nicole Scherzinger, who is best known for being the ex-PussycatDoll singer and the X-Factor guest judge. The opening event also attracted various other well known faces to open new stores. Olympian hurdler Colin Jackson opened the Lloyds TSB’s first branch since 2004, a synchronized swimmer Jenna Randall and a rower Andy Triggs-Hodge opened Next’s new store as well as carrying out autograph signing sessions, while Kelly Brook opened the New Look store.
The commercial property consists of the total floor space of 1.9 million sq ft, in which 95 per cent of it has been let to shops. Boris Johnson, Mayor of London said “The project was setting the pace for the transformation of east London. It is one of the most important legacies of the 2012 Olympics. It will create 18,000 jobs, as a result of Westfield’s investment including 8,500 retail jobs.” He further added “It will have some of the most modern additions to London’s public transport infrastructure.”
According to the Games organiser, Locoq, an official London Olympics store is set to open next month, with its target of raising £80 million from selling licensed products. The commercial property will also be used as an operational and logistics hub, by setting up temporary offices as well as taking over the 3000 space car park.
