With less than three months before opening, Rebecca Thomson visits Westfield Stratford as it prepares for the 2012 games to commence

Westfield Stratford

Westfield Stratford

Cost £1.45bn
Size 1.9 million sq ft of retail and leisure, bigger than Westfield London’s 1.5 million sq ft. Stratford will be the biggest urban shopping centre in Europe
Number of stores 300 retail stores and about 70 bars and restaurants
Other attractions A Vue cinema, casino, an All Star Lanes bowling alley and several hotels
Firsts Great Eastern Market, the first fresh food market in a shopping centre
Jobs It will create 18,000 permanent jobs, of which 10,000 are in retail, and 25,000 construction jobs
Parking 5,000 spaces
The catchment area 4 million people live within a 45-minute drive; 6.7 million live within one hour’s drive
Available weighted spend Westfield says that the catchment area gives access to a £3.24bn spending potential

Only about half of the escalators are working, and most fascias are shrouded in plastic to keep any design tricks secret ahead of their big opening day. The atmosphere is one of frenzied activity as retailers and construction teams work to finish the development and only the anchor stores such as John Lewis are yet sporting any signage. With 11 weeks to go until completion, Westfield Stratford is still a work in progress, but the £1.45bn shopping development poised on the edge of the Olympic village is shaping up to be very impressive indeed.

This time next year the site will play its own part on the world stage that is the Olympics, forming the only entrance to the Olympics site for visitors coming by public transport. Anyone with tickets, or who just wants to catch a glimpse of the stadium, will pass through the shopping centre - Westfield expects about 70% of Olympics visitors to walk through its outdoor central walkway, lined by retailers that are no doubt rubbing their hands at the thought of the expected footfall.

Icing on the cake

Confirmed retailers

Anchors

  • John Lewis
  • Waitrose
  • Marks & Spencer

Other retailers

Westfield acquired the site back in 2004, with planning permission granted in February 2005 - a year before London was announced as the 2012 host. John Lewis property director Jeremy Collins says the retailer made its decision to commit to the site before the Olympics was announced, but it was “the icing on the cake”. When it was confirmed that London would host the games, Collins says it “guaranteed the site would be a success and sped up a process that could have potentially taken longer”.

SuperGroup chief executive Julian Dunkerton says the Olympics announcement wasn’t the determining factor in signing for a store there, but it believes the Games will provide “a launch pad for the overall project and give it a national focus”. There are high hopes for the event - Westfield director of operations Bill Giouroukos says the sporting event is expected to bring in a huge hike in footfall.

At the time of going to press, 90% of space in the development is committed, and Westfield is confident most stores will be inhabited by opening day on September 13.

The shopping centre’s position means that those retailers with a store there - and therefore with a store under the noses of many of the 9.7 million ticket holders - are likely to have a head start when it comes to capitalising on the Olympics. Giouroukos is advising them to make the most of the branding opportunity. Stratford anchor and Olympics sponsor John Lewis agrees - its store is perched at one end of the development, looking out over the Olympic village. “To be part of the regeneration of the East End is fantastic,” says Collins. “Particularly to be in at the beginning of all of it, and seeing what’s happening with the Olympic park and everything it’s bringing to the area.” Customers visiting the mall during the Games will feel the effects of the event - crowds will be big, and every car coming into the site during the Games will be screened by security - but Westfield says any disruption will be short-term and minimal.

Long-term strategy

While the legacy of the Games will of course linger, the Olympics only lasts a little over two weeks. The unprecedented footfall it will bring to Westfield will be a short-term phenomenon. Who exactly the long-term Westfield Stratford customer will be remains to be seen. Despite the customary research into demographics and geography that goes into choosing sites such as this, some still have their doubts that it has the right mix of locals to emulate Westfield London’s success in the west of the city.

One property agent, who didn’t want to be named, says: “It looks like a very big and well-designed scheme, as you would expect from Westfield, but I’m not convinced about the place itself. Westfield London is on the edge of Kensington - the demographics in the east are not good in comparison to the west and I don’t think Stratford will trade as well.” Not only are there fewer affluent locals in the east, but City workers, he predicts, are unlikely to shop there during the day when Canary Wharf is closer.

Not so, says Giouroukos. The catchment area for Westfield London and Stratford may well be different, but this is true for all 119 Westfield malls around the world - no two are identical. Stratford, he says, won’t just rely on nearby residents for business. “We’re drawing from a catchment area across 200 square miles,” he says. “Four million people live within 45 minutes’ drive of the site.” Plus, the mall in the west might have richer locals, but with much of Essex and Cambridgeshire not yet serviced by a large retail destination, it’s likely that the potential population pool in the east is larger.

Tourist appeal

It’s not just locals who matter to Stratford - around 30% of Westfield London’s customers are tourists, a figure Giouroukos expects to be replicated in the east. And transport links to the site are strong - with an international train station, tube station, the Docklands Light Railway, domestic trains and extensive road and bus networks. “There’s a lot going for this site,” he says. The only thing Westfield wants is for the Eurostar to agree to stop there - about which there have been as yet unsuccessful discussions.

Dan Hildyard, director at property agency Harper Dennis Hobbs, agrees. He says the agency has been advising many of its retail clients to have a presence at Stratford, but adds he has witnessed a level of reticence from some. “Some people are nervous because of the location and I can understand that,” he says, “But ultimately it is 15 minutes from the centre of London and it has a huge pool of people in Essex and Cambridgeshire. There’s not a great deal of quality retailing around there.” The east of London has the added bonus of a lack of competition - Westfield London contends with strong shopping offers in places like Kingston, Richmond and Kensington High Street, but there are fewer alternative shopping centres in the east. “We believe it will prove to be a strong development,” says Hildyard.

John Lewis and Waitrose were the first anchors to be announced, with Marks & Spencer following soon after. Since then, the names have continued to stack up.

Forever 21, Next and Uniqlo are just three of the retailers already confirmed and when walking around the building it’s hard to think of a brand that’s not represented. Collins says the site was a natural route for growth for John Lewis. “In London the only real direction we can grow in is the east,” he says. “The West End, the south, north and west are all heavily developed. The natural route for us is eastwards.”

Unique and careful proposition

For other retailers, it’s the design and proposition in Westfield’s malls that makes having a presence there a no-brainer. Dunkerton says several things will make customers keen to make the journey - its food halls, for instance, provide options like Vietnamese and Lebanese food instead of the usual fast food fare, and the mix of retailers is carefully thought out. “When they first opened in Shepherd’s Bush, I wasn’t sure if it was going to work, but it’s unbelievable. They create a place that a sophisticated consumer wants to shop in and I think retailers would be foolish to underestimate the power of what they’re doing.”

For M&S, the site’s environmental credentials proved enticing. Programme manager Neil Reus says: “It’s located on one of the most environmentally efficient developments in the UK, providing us with the perfect platform to launch one of our biggest stores in the UK.” The store itself, he adds, will have an “impressive range” of sustainable design features in line with the retailer’s Plan A eco strategy.

Guy Grainger, head of UK retail at property agency Jones Lang LaSalle, says Westfield has got many of the fundamentals right, which helps to override nervousness about the location. “There are excellent communications, they hit critical mass, which means they have enough retailers in there to create a dominant shopping centre, and they have very strong anchors.” Considering the difficult market, he says, Westfield has done well to get 90% of stores committed. But he adds that no one is getting through the downturn unscathed. “Time will tell as to how many stores will be open and trading on day one,” adds Grainger.

The difficult trading conditions will have been an inevitable ball and chain around Westfield’s leg - any developer launching a huge project such as this when sales are suffering is bound to feel some effect. But Hildyard believes it was a clever move for Westfield
to focus again on the capital for the next big project. “London seems to be resisting the economic crisis better than anywhere else,” he says. “It’s still performing well and rents haven’t decreased on the premier streets.”

Whatever the shorter term economic difficulties, Giouroukos says Westfield’s success is inevitable when longer term consumer trends are taken into account. Online retailing might be eating into sales in some categories, but consumers are still willing to make a trip to a destination if retailers and developers make it worth their while.

In short, shoppers are more demanding now, and Westfield believes it offers what they want. “People are looking for an experience,” Giouroukos says. “They’re looking for a broad range of product offers. They want events like movie premieres and fashion shows - this is the kind of thing we provide.” Dunkerton is certainly convinced by Westfield’s offer: “Their offer is calculated and well thought out, which makes it a real pleasure to be in that environment.”

On paper, Stratford looks to provide what customers are demanding; high quality destination retailing with myriad other attractions from a casino to bowling. It will create 18,000 jobs and will play a key role in east London’s regeneration. There are high hopes for its success and as one of the last big retail developments for some time to come, the pressure is on.

 

The Olympics’ impact on Westfield

  • 70% of Games visitors will pass through the shopping centre
  • 10 million people will visit during the Olympics, including 9.7 million spectators with tickets and 10,500 athletes
  • The TV audience will be 4 billion
  • Some disruption for shoppers is expected, such as security screening of all cars
  • Westfield is considering removing benches and trees from the central walkway to make room for the crowds
  • During previous Olympic Games, shoppers have been stopped from taking shopping bags into the event other than those of the official sponsors. Westfield is organising a delivery system where shoppers can have goods delivered to their home or hotel, which London 2012 visitors can use if needed