With the world economy in a tailspin and UK shoppers hunkered down in their trenches wearing tin-hats, the one thing you really wouldn’t want to be doing this week is opening a £1.7bn, 43 acre, 265-store mega shopping centre in central London. But that’s exactly what the luckless Westfield, the largest urban shopping centre in Europe (right on MT’s doorstep here in West London) is doing: Mayor Boris is cutting the ribbon (and probably falling over his bootlaces) on Wednesday.
Westfield is a serious piece of work: it took 13m man hours to build, should create 7000 jobs and is hoping for 20m visitors each year. The plan when it was conceived was to create a middle-to-top-end venue that would draw destination shoppers away from Bluewater and lakeside Thurrock. The thinking was sound, but the reality into which it is being launched is chilly. Even Westfield’s slogan – ‘Shopping in a new light’ – will have an unfortunate double-meaning.
They’ve done a good job persuading plenty of big names to take space – M&S, Topshop, Next, Waitrose, as well as Tiffany and Gucci. Even the (slightly past it) Abercrombie & Fitch is pitching in.
Quite apart from agonising about levels of footfall, another nightmare for Westfield is that a good number of the outlets – Karen Millen, Coast, Oasis, House of Fraser – are rented by Baugur, the stricken Icelandic investor. The Aussie landlords will be wanting to get those rent cheques cashed – assuming they can get their hands on them in the first place.
On the plus side, the entire staff of Grazia magazine has been dragooned into producing an issue of their gorgeous mag from inside a giant Perspex pod at Westfield. So there are some bright things to look forward to...
In today's bulletin:
Markets tank again as panic goes global
Sales slide is no small beer
Editor's blog: Bad timing for Westfield
MT's Little Ray of Sunshine: Knowing me, knowing you
The Snowball Effect
