The Final Countdown

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Westfield shopping centre prepares to open

The Christmas trees are already standing proudly in the Debenhams shop window, waiting, not for Christmas but for next Thursday (October 30) when the £1.6bn shopping centre opens its doors for the first time.

With just seven days to go, the Westfield site is buzzing with activity as contractors work around the clock to finish the job on time. In what has looked like a crescendo of work, the area surrounding Westfield has been crowded with workmen over the past few days, at times making it feel as though they outnumbered the residents.

In the building site that Wood Lane has become, nearby residents, who have suffered months of building noise – often late into the evening and on Sundays – will be looking forward to the end of this huge project, which is set to transform Shepherd’s Bush forever.

However, with at least two cranes and plenty of other heavy machinery still on site, it is hard to believe that the grand opening will take place next week. But Westfield insist that it will.

Inside the shopping centre - the third largest in the UK after MetroCentre and Bluewater - Westfield say the shops will be a mix of international designer brands and high street stores such as House of Fraser, Marks & Spencer, Debenhams, Bose, Next and Waitrose.

 

Most of the shops will be located in The Atrium, also known as the Pavilion, which will also be the place where festival-style events and exhibitions take place, while The Village, spread over two floors, will be the home of the designer brands, including Louis Vuitton, Mulberry, Thomas Pink, Tiffany & Co, Armani, Hugo Boss, Duchamp, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, TM Lewin and Gieves & Hawkes.

There will be 17 restaurants and cafes along the Southern Terrace, as well as 13 eateries in the Balcony area and the shopping centre will also house a gym, spa and a 16-screen cinema.

 

Westfield are keen to emphasise the more innovative features of the centre: “Dramatic lighting, arresting signage and quirky displays are some of the themes that will recur as you take tour of Westfield London’s shopping. Seek out tunnel entrances, overhead installations, staircases that appear to float…and how about a sculpture of laser-cut acrylic stilettos suspended in space?”

The building’s most striking feature – the swooping glass roof - looks likely to give the shopping centre plenty of natural daylight - a big improvement on the gloomy artificial lighting of Brent Cross.

After investing over £170 million in local transport links, including the new Overground station, Wood Lane Tube station and a rebuilt Central line station, Westfield says it expects six out of every 10 visitors to arrive by some form of public transport. The shopping centre will also have 4,500 parking spaces and charging docks for electric cars and will use modern technology to help car drivers find an available parking space.

However, many residents have expressed concern about the almost inevitable increase in traffic in the Shepherd’s Bush area, as well as parking – already an issue in the streets around Wood Lane where Westfield contractors are currently taking up many of the pay-and-display parking bays. Westfield have still not said how much it is going to cost to park inside the shopping centre and many residents fear shoppers will choose to park in the side streets instead if that turns out to be the  cheaper option.

In the coming weeks, the impact of thousands of extra people descending on Shepherd’s Bush will become clear: parking, traffic, litter, noise and how the local shops will fare are all issues that are likely to raise their heads.

In the meantime, the areas outside the Overground station and the newly-rebuilt Central line Tube station were transformed from worksites to station piazzas almost overnight.

Perhaps the shopping centre will perform the same near-miracle, and before you can say the words ‘undulating roof’, it will be finished. 

 

Yasmine Estaphanos

 

22 October 2008