£1bn ‘quirky shops’ plan to restore glory days at Whiteley’s
LONDON’S ill-fated “first department store” is to be returned to its original Edwardian glory as a glamorous new £1 billion hub for independent shops.
The scheme to revive the “dying” Whiteley’s mall on Queensway involves the demolition of much of the building apart from its Grade II listed facade and trademark dome and cupulas. A courtyard will be created in the middle with the ground and first floors devoted to a “rich diversity of quirky, idiosyncratic retailers”, according to architects Foster & Partners. Images revealed today at a public exhibition of the plans show there will also be a boutique four- or five-star hotel, about 120 homes and a subterranean leisure complex including cinemas, bowling alley and gym.
The owners of Whiteley’s, property investment fund Meyer Bergman, hope the plan will rejuvenate what was once one of the three great pioneering “pal- aces of retail” in central London alongside Harrods and Selfridges. However, it has been drastically squeezed in recent years by competition from Westfield in Shepherd’s Bush and Oxford Street. Only about 25 per cent is occupied on fully commercial terms.
Patrick Campbell of Foster & Partners said: “This scheme has to be different from the other big retail hubs that are very close. It is about taking a dying shopping centre and turning it inside out.” The roof “clutter” will be cleared to make way for winter gardens and the unfinished cupula at the northern end will be completed, more than a century after the building went up.
Markus Meijer, co-founder and chief executive of Meyer Bergman, which bought the building from Standard Life for £115 million in 2013, has formed a joint venture with Warrior Group, headed by west London property entrepreneur Warren Todd.
Mr Meijer said he hoped the 525,000 sq ft scheme would help regenerate the whole of the Queensway area. The company has bought the shops at the northern end and plans to upgrade them.
Whiteley’s was started as a “fancy goods” shop on Westbourne Grove by William Whiteley in 1863. It grew over the next decade but suffered a series of suspected arson attacks culminating in the 1887 blaze that gutted the building. A replacement emporium in the Edwardian High Baroque style opened in 1911 as “the biggest British store in the world”.