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Unveiled: Stratford 2011. Major retail complex beside Olympic site
Jonathan Prynn02.07.08
The East End will soon threaten the West End's retail dominance with a vast new shopping complex next to the Olympic Park in Stratford.
The developers of the £1.5billion Stratford City mall, which will have more than 300 shops, got the final goahead from the Government yesterday.
Opening in spring 2011, it will have London's first John Lewis department store east of Oxford Street, a huge flagship branch of Marks & Spencer and a major Waitrose supermarket.
Australian developer Westfield said it expected the shopping centre to be the first in east London to attract major international retailers.
Michael Gutman, UK managing director of Westfield, said: "I wouldn't imagine Stratford City will have a dedicated luxury precinct but there will be everything up to that level.
"The east side of London is really underserved and underinvested. There is much less competition than in the west so it is a really compelling story for retailers."
Westfield is also behind the massive shopping mall at Shepherd's Bush, due to open at the end of October.
Historically, the East End has been ignored by international-level retailers, despite the rise of Canary Wharf as a financial district and the Docklands as a wealthy residential quarter over the past 20 years.
The shopping centre will be served by Stratford International station, with Eurostar connections to Paris and Brussels in around two hours and St Pancras International in seven minutes. It will also be linked to the DLR and Tube networks and eventually Crossrail, with up to 24 trains an hour east and west at peak times.
Mr Gutman said Stratford City and Westfield London in Shepherd's Bush would "complement" the West End, rather than represent a direct threat.
However, with at least 10 major shopping developments either with planning permission or applying for it around central London, the West End is under unprecedented pressure.
The Stratford City investment is the first major commitment of private sector funding for the regeneration of the East End on the back of London winning the 2012 Games.
After a briefing with Gordon Brown yesterday, Steven Lowy, group managing director of Westfield, said: "We wouldn't be doing this in this timescale without the Olympics."
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Reader views (11)
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I've seen the little man from Westfield who's out and about talking about Stratford City. These plans are really exciting and will be great for Stratford. I can't wait for it to open.
- Peter, Stratford
Does anyone seriously believe this project is going to come off? Has anyone looked at the financial markets, the state of the Olympics, not to mention the UK's, budget, or the fortunes of the US real estate market anyone heard of Cleveland, or Liverpool, for that matter? I suspect that Stratford city will only benefit an elite minority – most region projects do not create jobs for locals nor offer products the majority can afford, esp once the credit bubble on which people's tenuous ascent from so called 'roughness' was predicated has deflated. Stratford still looks beautiful at sunset from the Greenway and, aesthetically and socially, yet another mega-dull, highly exploitative, totally privatised space designed to enrich developers is not necessarily such a tragic loss if it doesn't come off. As an east end resident I am delighted when the gentrification associated with such mega projects is arrested; life in the east end was much more positive before such macro-negativities were imposed on us. and if you don't like negativity, you should really move out of the area - it's still a hot bed of non-conformists, radical thinkers and yuppy haters, thankfully.
- Ben, london uk
So Stratford 2011, formerly Stratford City, is being built 'on the back' of the Olympics. Actually it received planning permission two years before the Olympic Bid was won and had been years more in the making. It is an entirely separate project costing in total £4billion and will deliver more jobs than the are claimed for the Olympics yet London 2012 says the Olympics are needed to regenerate East London! It is being built on the old Stratford Rail Lands, which were set aside as a prime development site by Newham Council in the early 90s. The site includes the International Train Station (Eurotunnel) and the development was to help finance that investment. Perhaps the Olympics is also claiming that as a legacy from the Games! In its planning application it was described as a 'Metropolitan Centre' to serve all London. Later the Olympics took over the northern section of the site for the Athletes' Village claiming this as Olympic Legacy housing. However, this housing would have been built anyway so this is double counting. Originally it wouldn't have cost the taxpayer anything, apart from the social housing grant, whereas now it will cost hundreds of millions. Of course, the developers are happy to lay their hands on public funds so will happily give credit to 2012! It will now be delivered later than it would have been as the housing will have to be converted for ordinary use once the Games have ended. The ODA was claiming 4,500 homes from the Village, but now only 3,300.
- Julian Cheyne, London, UK
