2012 Olympics, of Retail Development: Westfield Stratford City is Off to a Fast Start

(All Images Above from Westfield's Website)

Aside from thousands of athletes and visitors, the Olympics bring unprecedented development to the host city. Sports venues, the Olympic Village, infrastructure and transportation improvements are planned years in advance and begin to take shape as the opening day draws near. 

To capitalize on the millions of visitors and the international spotlight the Olympics generate, developers have been equally busy planning and building retail developments to serve those visitors and claim a piece of the economic pie. Visa, in its London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games Expenditure and Economic Impact report estimates that the 2012 Olympics could generate in excess of $1 Billion in additional consumer spending and those dollars, pounds, euros, and countless other currencies will be spent lodging, shopping and eating in these strategically placed developments.

One such development is Westfield Stratford City located in the east London Borough of Newham, England.

The center, adjacent to Olympic Park, opened on September 13^th of this year and is billed as the largest urban shopping center in the UK and is certainly worthy of its title as Stratford “City”.  The $1.2 billion, 1.9 million sf development is located on a 185 acre brownfield site that boasts over 300 shops, 50 restaurants as well as three anchor stores; Marks & Spencer, John Lewis, and a Waitrose supermarket.  You can see a listing of stores at this store directory link. See this article from the Daily Mail that covers the opening day events.

(Image from Westfield's Website)

But Stratford City is more than an indoor mall.  It is also a mixed use development that includes 1.1 million SF of office space, two hotels, a cinema, bowling alley, casino, and housing.  The city will also include two powers stations that are expected to provide 75% of the center’s energy needs.  It is also interesting to note that an article in the Guardian (and confirmed in Westfield's press toolkit) states that 70% of visitors attending the Olympics will be through Westfield’s newest development.  It is estimated that 25,000 attendees per hour will exit into the center just from the high-speed Javelin train from King’s Cross rail station alone.  Indeed, Westfield Stratford City is also a transportation hub that includes the above mentioned options as well as the London Tube, London Overground, Docklands Light Railway, local bus lines, as well as 58 National Rail trains that will stop at the development’s two railway stations each hour.  They have also made accommodations for cars (5,000 total parking spaces) and bicycles (1,180 racks as well as an on-site repair services). 

And speaking of transportation, the center is also the home to the largest installation of Pavegen’s tile technology which consists of a recycled rubber floor tile that harnesses the kinetic energy generated by pedestrian footsteps.  See more information on this innovative technology from this article from Skim That.

Here is a news clip from Bloomberg and for a flythrough of the center check out this video that flys through the project and its location:

The jury is still out on whether this project will be a Gold Medal for Westfield. There is little doubt of its early success this year and through the 2012 games where it has a strategic location advantage for the estimated 10 million visitors that will certainly be aware and patronize its shops.  But will that be enough to carry it through the months and years following the games in a Borough that has been previously one of the poorest of all London?


We will follow this closely.  Obviously a project of this size is not without its risks and it would appear that the gamble may pay off for Westfield.