Here on the Focus blog we thought that Westfield's stampede into Croydon wouldn't be the last word on the redevelopment of the Whitgift shopping centre. It's something we've blogged about before.Today's news that Royal London is searching for a partner (£) for the redevelopment of the 633,000 sq ft centre confirms that.
The cynics out there say this is a ploy by Whitgift's owners to drum up the price of their asset in an ailing market. And why wouldn't they?
Others, like one who has been a planning adviser in the town on redevelopment opportunities elsewhere, think this is unlikely. He argues that the Whitgift Trust and the centre's other owners are long term investors in the town and actually do care what happens to the development.
So how do the contenders shape up?
Well Westfield has everyone excited. It's fresh from opening Stratford City, and many think it will actually deliver. But its detractors say it's not used to dealing with complicated sites. The Olympics site was an easy chunk of land, and just look what happened with its involvement in Nottingham's Broadmarsh centre, a difficult to piece together development that Westfield worked on for over ten years before finally setting it free last month.
Hammerson already owns Centrale shopping centre directly opposite the Whitgift centre. It has stated its aspirations on this blog for a cohesive "seismic" scheme in Croydon. Its experience on Birmingham's Bullring and Bristol's Cabot Circus show that it is no stranger to putting together development partnerships and making them deliver on complex sites. Westfield has no track record of doing this in the UK.
Land Securities is also mooted. It too is used to large complex developments and has already worked with Hammerson on the Bullring shopping centre in Birmingham. At the moment it is elbow deep in delivering the redevelopment of Trinity Leeds but with an opening date of Spring 2013 it is probably on the look out for the next thing to get its teeth into.
Lend Lease is the last contender believed to be in the running. It is still smarting from it's run-in at Preston over the Tithebarn scheme. Plans were sent back to the drawing board when John Lewis walked away in November. Will it be up for another long-winded, complicated project quite so soon?
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