Bluewater Shopping Centre
Encyclopedia
Bluewater is an out of town shopping centre
Shopping mall
A shopping mall, shopping centre, shopping arcade, shopping precinct or simply mall is one or more buildings forming a complex of shops representing merchandisers, with interconnecting walkways enabling visitors to easily walk from unit to unit, along with a parking area — a modern, indoor version...

, located in Greenhithe
Greenhithe
Greenhithe is a town in Dartford District of Kent, England. It forms part of the civil parish of Swanscombe and Greenhithe.Greenhithe, as it is spelled today, is located where it was possible to build wharves for transshipping corn, wood and other commodities; its largest cargoes were of chalk and...

, Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. Opened on 16 March 1999, it is owned by four major UK institutions, Prudential plc
Prudential plc
Prudential plc is a multinational financial services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom.Prudential's largest division is Prudential Corporation Asia, which has over 15 million customers across 13 Asian markets and is a top-three provider of life insurance in mainland China, Hong...

 and PRUPIM
Prudential Property Investment Managers
PRUPIM is a top 20 global real estate investment manager, providing integrated services for fund management, asset management and property management. PRUPIM, part of the M&G Group of Companies, is the real estate investment arm of Prudential plc in the UK and Europe...

 (35%), Lend Lease Europe Ltd (30%), the Lend Lease Retail Partnership (25%) and Hermes (10%).

Situated on a 240-acre (97 ha) plot in a former chalk
Chalk
Chalk is a soft, white, porous sedimentary rock, a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite. Calcite is calcium carbonate or CaCO3. It forms under reasonably deep marine conditions from the gradual accumulation of minute calcite plates shed from micro-organisms called coccolithophores....

 quarry
Quarry
A quarry is a type of open-pit mine from which rock or minerals are extracted. Quarries are generally used for extracting building materials, such as dimension stone, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, and gravel. They are often collocated with concrete and asphalt plants due to the requirement...

, the centre has a sales floor area of 154,000 m2 (1,600,000 ft2) over two levels, making it the fourth-largest shopping centre in the UK (after the MetroCentre, Trafford Centre
Trafford Centre
The Trafford Centre is a large indoor shopping centre and leisure complex situated in the Metropolitan Borough of Trafford in Greater Manchester, close to the Trafford Park industrial estate and approximately 5 miles from Manchester city centre. It is the highest valued shopping centre in the...

 and Westfield Stratford City). Elsewhere in Europe only Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...

's Cevahir Mall
Cevahir Mall
Istanbul Cevahir Shopping and Entertainment Centre, opened on 15 October 2005, is a modern shopping and entertainment centre located in the Şişli district of Istanbul, Turkey. Called also Şişli Kültür ve Ticaret Merkezi...

 and Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

's (Vösendorf
Vösendorf
Vösendorf is a town in the district of Mödling in the Austrian state of Lower Austria....

) Shopping City Süd
Shopping City Süd
The Shopping City Süd is a shopping centre located in Vösendorf, south of Vienna, Austria.With a leasable area of 173,000 square metres, it is the biggest shopping mall in Austria and also one of the biggest in Europe. It contains over 330 shops and has got about 4,500 employees...

 are bigger. The floor plan is a triangular shape with 330 stores, including 3 anchors
Anchor store
In retail, an anchor store, draw tenant, anchor tenant, or key tenant is one of the larger stores in a shopping mall, usually a department store or a major retail chain....

, 40 cafés and restaurants, and a 13-screen cinema. The centre employs 7,000 and serves over visitors a year. A main rival is the Lakeside Shopping Centre
Lakeside Shopping Centre
The Lakeside Shopping Centre is a large out-of-town shopping centre located in West Thurrock, in the borough of Thurrock, Essex just beyond the eastern boundary of Greater London...

 and retail park some nine miles (14 km) away in West Thurrock
West Thurrock
West Thurrock is a traditional Church of England parish and town in Thurrock, Essex, England, located 17.5 miles east south-east of Charing Cross, London.-Location:...

, Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...

.

History

In 1994, quarry operator Blue Circle
Blue Circle Industries
Blue Circle Industries was a British public company manufacturing cement. It was founded in 1900, and was bought out by the French company Lafarge in 2001.-History:...

 approached Australian mall developer Lend Lease
Lend Lease Corporation
Lend Lease Group is a global property and infrastructure company headquartered in Sydney, Australia...

 to form a partnership.
Instead, Lend Lease bought the land and the project from Blue Circle, and under the leadership of its CEO Peter Walichnowski gathered a group of major investors, which included: Prudential
Prudential plc
Prudential plc is a multinational financial services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom.Prudential's largest division is Prudential Corporation Asia, which has over 15 million customers across 13 Asian markets and is a top-three provider of life insurance in mainland China, Hong...

, Barclays Mercantile
Barclays plc
Barclays PLC is a global banking and financial services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. As of 2010 it was the world's 10th-largest banking and financial services group and 21st-largest company according to a composite measure by Forbes magazine...

, Hermes (acting for Britel), Lloyds Leasing
Lloyds TSB
Lloyds TSB Bank Plc is a retail bank in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1995 by the merger of Lloyds Bank, established in Birmingham, England in 1765 and traditionally considered one of the Big Four clearing banks, with the TSB Group which traces its origins to 1810...

, and Royal Bank Leasing
Royal Bank of Scotland
The Royal Bank of Scotland Group is a British banking and insurance holding company in which the UK Government holds an 84% stake. This stake is held and managed through UK Financial Investments Limited, whose voting rights are limited to 75% in order for the bank to retain its listing on the...

. Lend Lease also formed a pool of minor investors, called the Lend Lease Retail Partnership, with 18 institutions and corporations.

With the Bluewater project finally under way, it was time to sign up the tenants, beginning with the major ones. John Lewis
John Lewis Partnership
The John Lewis Partnership is an employee-owned UK partnership which operates John Lewis department stores, Waitrose supermarkets and a number of other services...

 was the first in February 1995, albeit with major concessions, such as the offer of 300000 sq ft (27,870.9 m²), one-fifth of the entire floor space, on three levels. Still, this gave Bluewater the credibility it needed to sign more names, including the two other anchor store
Anchor store
In retail, an anchor store, draw tenant, anchor tenant, or key tenant is one of the larger stores in a shopping mall, usually a department store or a major retail chain....

s. House of Fraser
House of Fraser
House of Fraser is a British department store group with over 60 stores across the United Kingdom and Ireland. It was established in Glasgow, Scotland in 1849 as Arthur and Fraser. By 1891 it was known as Fraser & Sons. The company grew steadily during the early 20th century, but after the Second...

 was next and in June 1996 Marks & Spencer
Marks & Spencer
Marks and Spencer plc is a British retailer headquartered in the City of Westminster, London, with over 700 stores in the United Kingdom and over 300 stores spread across more than 40 countries. It specialises in the selling of clothing and luxury food products...

 signed too. By March 1998, 90% of the retail space was committed.

Construction, which was undertaken by Bovis Lend Lease
Bovis Lend Lease
Lend Lease Project Management & Construction is the international project management and construction division of Lend Lease Group.-History:...

, started on 1 May 1996. At its peak, the construction site employed 2,500 workers simultaneously. In all, 20,000 people worked hours on the construction of Bluewater. At the planned opening date, 16 March 1999, Bluewater was inaugurated with 99% of the shops open for business. The total cost of construction was around GBP £400 million. At the time of its construction, Bluewater was the largest shopping centre in Europe.

In May 2005, Bluewater introduced a code of conduct to ban swearing, clothing that obscures the face (including hoods and baseball caps), and groups of more than five without the intention to shop. This policy has divided opinion, with high-profile figures such as Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...

 showing his support, but has been criticised in the liberal press and those working with children locally.

In late 2006, Dartford Borough Council granted planning permission for Bluewater to build a two-story events venue of 5200 m2, and further extend the south side of the centre. In early 2010, construction began on the venue.

See also

  • Ebbsfleet International railway station
    Ebbsfleet International railway station
    Ebbsfleet International railway station is a railway station in Ebbsfleet Valley, in the Borough of Dartford, Kent, 10 miles outside the eastern boundary of Greater London, England. It is near Dartford and the Bluewater shopping centre to the west and Gravesend to the east. Ebbsfleet International...

  • Greenhithe railway station
    Greenhithe railway station
    Greenhithe railway station serves the village of Greenhithe in north Kent and Bluewater Shopping Centre. Train services are operated by Southeastern.-Design:...

  • London Buses route 96
    London Buses route 96
    London Buses route 96 is a Transport for London contracted bus route in London, United Kingdom. The service is currently contracted to Stagecoach London.-History:...

  • London Buses route 492

External links

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