The Westfield Group (Sydney, Australia) has opened the Westfield London mall in the city’s Shepherd’s Bush neighborhood.
The deluxe $2.5 billion mall took more than a decade to complete. And as it opened its doors, fear of a recession in Great Britain is casting some doubts on the timing of the project.
Not the perfect time to be opening, concedes Michael Gutman, managing director of the British and Europe branch of Westfield Group, the Australian company developing the maxi-mall.
“You wouldn't choose this time,” Michael Gutman, managing director of the British and Europe branch of Westfield Group, told the Associated Press. “But we've been operating for 50 years and from time to time you open in a boom and from time to time you open in a recession. We are planning for the long term.”
The glitzy in-town mall has marble floors, crystal chandeliers and a champagne bar. It includes 300 stores and such high-profile retail names as Debenham’s department store, Prada, Dior, Hugo Boss, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Valentino and many others.
As part of the deal, Westfield spent more than $272 million just to build new public transportation facilities to the mall, including a new Tube station and a new overground train connection. It’s the Australian developer’s largest overall investment.
The 43-acre mall sits in the heart of Shepherd's Bush, a neighborhood that has some affluent sections but is also home to a low-income immigrant population hit hard by joblessness. A rundown commercial area sits just a block away from the new mall.