Manchester Arndale
Encyclopedia
Manchester Arndale is a large shopping centre in Manchester
, England. The centre was built in the 1970s when many other cities were constructing large malls. Manchester Arndale is the largest of a chain of Arndale Centres built across the UK in the 1960s and 1970s. It was constructed in phases between 1972 and 1979, at a cost of £100 m.
The centre was redeveloped after the 1996 Manchester bombing
. The centre has a retail floorspace of just under 1500000 ft2 (not including Selfridges
and Marks and Spencer department stores to which it is connected via a link bridge), making it Europe's largest city-centre shopping mall. It is one of the largest shopping centres in the UK with 38 million visitors annually, ahead of the Trafford Centre
which attracts 35 million.
by developers, Town & City Properties, the successors to the Arndale Property Trust, with financial backing from the Prudential Assurance Company and Manchester Corporation. The first phase opened in 1975. It was the largest Arndale Centre in the United Kingdom.
man of Swiss
extraction owned a chain of baker's shops and had invested in retail premises from 1939. Chippindale was an estate agent and former civil servant from Otley
. Arndale was unusual, but not unique, amongst property companies in being based outside London and specialising in retail property. Hagenbach invested more and was the quieter. Chippindale was blunt and outspoken and able to persuade sceptical northern councils to accept the company's proposals, where London-based developers could not. Arndale bought property north of Market Street in 1952.
and the Royal Exchange
—the development has since been demolished), at the CIS buildings
, and at Piccadilly
. In the view of the surveyor, "These schemes have greatly improved the appearance of the central area of the City ...". The corporation's preferred development was a tower above a two or three storey podium
, the form used in all three developments, and later that of the Arndale. Corporation planners added the land and buildings they owned to those acquired by Arndale to increase the size of the available plot.
had concentrated its three main retail areas into one, with the aim of eliminating the need for residents to travel to Manchester to shop. Stockport
town centre had been cleared of cotton mills to improve its appearance, and a major through route had been closed to build the Merseyway Shopping Centre
, which doubled local retail spend. In quantitative terms, while in 1961 Manchester's retail spend was 3.7 times that of the next biggest shopping area in the conurbation, by 1971 this had fallen to 2.8 times.
.
The area was a patchwork of mostly Victorian buildings on a 17th and 18th century layout of streets, alleys, and courts. A map used for the 1961 meeting of the British Association shows shops fronting Market Street and Cross Street, with warehousing or office buildings behind.
Neither Stewart's The Stones of Manchester (1956) nor Sharp et al.'s survey Manchester Buildings (1966) describe the area or any buildings in particular. Stewart is generally strong on Victorian architecture, and none of its 60 "principal buildings" were within the redevelopment area. Sharp et al. covered older and new buildings; of the many described over fifty are in the city centre but none were in the cleared area. Pevsner
, writing in 1969 when clearance was imminent, found nothing of note. the town clerk, described the buildings as obsolescent in evidence to the public enquiry. Shop Property predicted in 1971 that as "new buildings replace the existing dilapidated ones" the city centre would lose its Coronation Street
image, and become "very attractive" to retailers. The Guardian which had offices in Cross Street wrote in 1976 that Market Street had been "depressing and decaying" for 30 years.
Later descriptions are more complimentary. Spring (in 1979) wrote of "... monstrosities that have ousted the city's grand heritage of nineteenth century commercial and industrial architecture—if the recently completed mammoth and distinctly lavatorial Arndale Centre is anything to go by." Hamilton (in 2001) wrote that the area reflected Manchester's wealth and leadership in the middle of the 19th century, with buildings designed by leading UK architects. Moran (in 2006) called it a "maze of characterful streets".
In the early 1960s the area had several establishments that made Manchester, in Lee's
description, a rival to Hamburg
as the "fun city of Europe". Unlicensed coffee bars
where people listened to live and recorded music did not serve alcohol
were effectively outside police control. A 1965 police report by plain-clothes
cadets known as the "mod squad", described them as unsanitary, dimly-lit drug dens
, run by "men of colour", where young men would be fleeced of their money and young women trapped into prostitution
. The Manchester Corporation Act 1965 was passed after the report and closed most of them. The Cinephone Cinema was the first in Manchester to show 'continental' X-rated films mostly erotica movies. Second-hand book stalls and what Lee described as "Manchester's very own Carnaby Street" had opened by the early 1970s. The Seven Stars on Withy Grove was one of Manchester's oldest pubs, with a licence dating back to 1356; Redford claimed it to be "oldest licensed house in Great Britain", though this was probably not the case.
The architects were Hugh Wilson and Lewis Womersley. Their work together included Hulme Crescents and the Manchester Education Precinct
. Womersley, as Sheffield
city architect, was responsible for Park Hill.
The developers and the corporation did not allow the architects a free hand. The developers demanded a closed building with little natural light and rejected a more open, roof-lit, design. The corporation insisted on a bus station, market, car parking, an underground railway station, and provision for deck access to subsequent developments. Cannon Street was to be kept open with no shop frontages. Corporation Street and High Street were allowed shop fronts on the returns to Market Street. Market Street, a busy thoroughfare, had shop fronts as pedestrianisation was proposed, though this did not happen until 1981. The architects, developers, and city council did not communicate well. Display windows were forbidden on most of the external walls of the centre and were inside the centre. The architects realised that "the brief [as] given ... would produce a very introverted building. And we said this would not be attractive".
Construction started in 1972 and the centre opened in stages, with the Arndale Tower and 60 shops opening in September 1976; followed by Knightsbridge Mall (the bridge over Market Street) in May 1977; the northern mall in October 1977; the market hall, Boots, and the bridge to the Shambles (over Corporation Street) in 1978; and the bus station off Cannon Street and anchor stores, Littlewoods
and British Home Stores in 1979. On opening, the centre contained 210 shops and over 200 market stalls.
The cost, estimated at £11½ million in the public enquiry in 1968, rose to £26 million by 1972, and to £30 million by 1974, forcing the formation of Manchester Mortgage Corporation, a partnership of Town & City, the Prudential Assurance Company, and Manchester Corporation. The trio remained convinced they were building "the finest shopping centre in Europe". The joint company run by Manchester Corporation, raised £5 million on the stock market, (a first for a company formed by a local authority), after the Prudential admitted it could not fully fund the project. Town & City came close to bankruptcy, forcing them into a reverse takeover of Jeffrey Sterling
's Sterling Guarantee Trust in April 1974 and a £25M rights issue in 1975–6. Costs reached £46M by 1976, of which £13M came from the council. The final cost, described as "enormous" by Parkinson-Bailey, was £100 million, made up of £11.5 million for land, £44.5 million for the building, and £44 million for fitting out.
into Hallé Square, a full-height open space. These areas remained fundamentally unchanged in 2009. North of Cannon Street, the lower floor was occupied by the bus station, with the upper floor shops, and 60 flats
above them. At the High Street end was a two-floor market area. Cannon Street was bridged by a mall at the Corporation Street end and underpassed by a tunnel at the High Street end. There was a continuous pathway around the centre, but not at a single level. At the High Street end a multi-storey car park was sited above the market centre and Cannon Street. In all there were 1360 yards of mall. Underneath the centre was a full-circuit full-height service road, ½ mile (0.8 km) in length, with access from Withy Grove. By taking advantage of the change in height, the architects hoped to solve the problem of persuading shoppers to use the upper shopping area. While the northern part had no anchor stores, the car park and bus station meant that foot traffic passed through the area avoiding quiet spots.
The final building was considered excessively large. The Guardian described it in 1978 as "an awful warning against thinking too big in Britain's cities", and "so castle-like in its outer strength that any passing medieval army would automatically besiege it rather than shop in it ...". The underground railway scheme was abandoned by 1976 and the only deck access was across Corporation Street to another Town & City development in the Shambles. At the official opening, one of its champions, Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw, Mayor of Manchester, commented, "I didn't think it would look like that when I saw the balsa wood models". The "unrepentant" architects responded that they had provided what they had been asked to provide. Kenneth Stone said in 1978 "We're not responsible for everything in there, but we're not sorry about the decisions we took as opposed to those which were forced upon us." The critics' opinion did not mellow with time, and it was described as "aggressive externally" in 1991. The Economist noted in 1996 that it had "long been regarded as one of Europe's ugliest shopping centres. ... the epitome of lousy modern architecture ... [the outside] was hated". The Financial Times in 1997 called it "outstandingly ugly" and in 2000 "one of Britain's least-loved buildings".
The main cause of its poor reception was its external appearance. Most of the centre was covered by pre-cast concrete panels faced with ceramic tiles. The deep buff tiles were made by Shaw Hathernware, a colour described "bile yellow" "putty and chocolate" (some parts were brown) and "vomit-coloured". They inspired the epithet "the longest lavatory wall in Europe" (and variations), poking fun at the developers' claims. According to The Guardian, the description was coined by Norman Shrapnel
, the paper's political columnist.
, was published to mark European Architectural Heritage Year in 1975. The book described the redevelopment of about 20 towns under the heading "scenes of rape" and uses the Arndale as an example of "brutal obliteration" undertaken by "the mind that seriously believes that the centre of Manchester should look like a futuristic vision or a barbaric new city borrowed from Le Corbusier
". In the same year the pressure group SAVE Britain's Heritage
was formed, in part to discourage the wholesale demolition of unremarkable industrial buildings in the north of England.
Several factors, including the property slump of 1974–6, changes to local government in 1974, and changes in the law after the Poulson affair, in which developers corrupted politicians to expedite schemes against the wider public interest, acted against further developments of the size and type of the Arndale. Built Environment noted that while Arndales are "an asset to any town", this scheme "smacks of opportunism beyond the general interest of the city as a whole".
The presence of over a million square feet of retail space distorted shopping patterns in Manchester city centre and many established retailers and retail districts struggled to adapt. Oldham Street
lost large stores from their long-term sites and it was clear the area would suffer. Shop and former textile warehouses closures comparable to those cleared for the Arndale, meant the area quickly became run-down and in Bennison et al.'s eyes "almost fossilised". The area remained run down until it was revitalised as the Northern Quarter in the late 1990s. Piccadilly Plaza, completed in 1966, lost trade when the Arndale opened and was put up for sale for £10M in the middle of 1979; as a shopping centre, it never recovered.
Stocks argues that these factors lay behind the Greater Manchester County Council
's (GMC) strategic view that the county had too much retail capacity. From 1977 onwards the GMC consistently opposed further development, and would not support any before 1986. Trade increased in the early 1980s, though GMC policy against development and for retaining the relative importance of the retail centres remained. By the mid 1980s, the trend in retailing had moved from city-centres to out-of-town. The opening of Meadowhall Centre in 1990 blighting the entire Sheffield
city centre.
The GMC was abolished in 1986 and, in Stocks' terms, "applications for major shopping schemes began to slop over the unmanned dam". A consequence of pent-up applications was that the adjacent newly-created authorities of Salford
and Trafford
found themselves in a "prisoner's dilemma
" over competing out-of-town schemes, at Barton Locks
and Dumplington
, broadly similar in size to the Arndale. By 1989 planning applications for almost five million square feet of retail space in Greater Manchester were unresolved. A public enquiry (followed by action in the appeal court, and a case in the House of Lords) approved the Dumplington proposal (the Trafford Centre
). Construction began in 1995.
placed at another. The Arndale's own radio station, Centre Sound, was installed. Hallé Square housed a food court
by day, and could be used as a concert area by night if required. Beddington describes the results as "workmanlike but unromantic".
Town & City changed its name to Sterling Guarantee Trust in 1983, and in February 1985 merged with the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (universally called ), also run by Jeffrey Sterling. decided to refurbish Knightsbridge (the bridge over Market Street) and double the rents. Work took place in 1990–1, and the most visible change was a £9M food court (Voyagers) in an area not previously open to the public. The refurbishment was a success and increased the centre's popularity. Other refurbishments took place in 1991–3, despite opposition from traders who objected to changes that might take the centre 'up-market'. The northern part of the centre saw little investment for years, and the market hall was seen as ripe for improvement.
The bus station became Manchester's busiest, handling 30,000 passengers and 1500 bus movements per day by 1991. It was unpopular with travellers, especially women. Described as "dirty and horrible", its poorly lit interior was identified by Taylor as inherently threatening and a "landscape of fear".
As a shopping centre it was outstandingly successful, and the critics' opinions were not universally held – especially by its owners. By 1996 the Arndale was fully let, raised £20M a year in rents, was the seventh busiest shopping area in the UK in terms of sales, and was visited by 750,000 people a week. The poet Lemn Sissay
wrote "The Arndale Centre was always just the Arndale Centre. A palace of Perspex and people. A light extravaganza.
... a shopper's heaven on earth. In all its gargantuan glory I love it. Whether it is ugly or not is a purely subjective opinion. It is wonderful inside."
The centre became a target for terrorists. Arson attacks in April 1991 were followed by firebombs in December 1991 which caused extensive damage to four stores. The Provisional Irish Republican Army
(IRA) was blamed for the incidents, in which the devices were placed in soft furnishings during shopping hours. After the second attack, Christmas shopping continued much as normal the following day in the unaffected stores. An unnamed fireman noted "What bugs me is if there's a big one planted there's a lot of glass around here, and a lot of people will be killed".
Two men parked a van containing a 1500 kg (3,306.9 lb) bomb on Corporation Street between Marks & Spencer
and the Arndale at about 9:20 on Saturday morning, 15 June 1996. At about 9:45, a coded warning was received by Granada TV
. The usual weekend population of shoppers was supplemented by football fans in town for the Russia
v Germany
match of UEFA Euro 1996, due to be staged on Sunday at Old Trafford
. About 80,000 people were cleared from the area by police and store staff using procedures developed after an IRA bombing incident in 1992, assisted by outside staff experienced in crowd control drafted in to help with the football fans. The bomb exploded at about 11:15, shortly after the army bomb squad
arrived from Liverpool
and began making it safe. Nobody was killed, but over 200 people were injured, some seriously, mostly by flying glass, though one pregnant shopper was thrown in the air by the blast.
In all 1200 properties on 43 streets were affected. Marks and Spencer's and the adjacent Longridge House were condemned as unsafe within days, and were demolished. The Arndale's frontage on Corporation Street and the footbridge were structurally damaged. The reinsurance
company Swiss Re
estimated that the final insurance payout was over £400M, making it, at the time, the most expensive man-made disaster ever.
Since the bombing, the centre has seen large-scale redevelopment and has a retail floorspace of 1400000 ft2, making it Europe's largest city-centre shopping mall, a record it has held continuously since construction apart from a brief spell during the northern redevelopment when the title was held by the Birmingham Bullring. the centre has a 96 metre tower containing office space.
As part of the renovation most of the tiles have been removed and a replaced by sandstone and glass cladding. Manchester Arndale houses Next, the company's largest store with the largest glass store frontage in the UK. It also houses the largest Office Shoe store outside London as of April 2010.
By the late 1990s the centre was no longer owned by the Arndale Property Trust. A rebranding was proposed, but abandoned. Today the centre is jointly owned by PRUPIM
and Capital Shopping Centres
.
Manchester wasn't the only city to build a major shopping centre in its city centre, the desire to provide modern shopping facilities was prevalent among most councils in major cities, where the old Victorian buildings couldn't accommodate modern retailers. Other examples from around the same time include the Bull Ring, Birmingham and the Merrion Centre, Leeds.
and required extensive redevelopment
work. In the immediate aftermath of the bombing the southern half of the centre was repaired and refurbished. The northern half was patched up with buses originally stopping on Cannon Street itself, before eventually being replaced by Shudehill Interchange
in January 2006. Marks and Spencer, which was particularly badly damaged in the explosion, reopened in a separate building, linked to the main mall on the first floor by a glass footbridge
which was designed by Stephen Hodder
. Shortly after opening the large branch, the building was split into two independent shops. Half remained a branch of Marks and Spencer while the side facing The Triangle
became a branch of Selfridges
.
In Autumn 2003, as the final stage of rebuilding the city centre after the bombing, the whole of the half of the centre north of Cannon Street was closed and demolished. Over the next two to three years, the northern half of the centre was completely rebuilt and extended. The first phase of the "northern extension", known as 'Exchange Court', opened on 20 October 2005. Exchange Court features Britain's flagship and the world's largest Next store. This was followed by the second phase known as 'New Cannon Street'. This opened on 6 April 2006. Stores in this phase include a new flagship
branch of TopShop
and Topman
.
On 7 September 2006 the third and final phase of the northern extension opened. The new Winter Garden
features stores such as a new HMV
(formerly Zavvi & Virgin Megastores), a Waterstone's
bookshop, and a new single-level unit for the Arndale Market. The completed mall provides a link from Exchange Square
and The Triangle
to the Northern Quarter, and from Market Street
to The Printworks
.
The southern half of the centre was refurbished, and there are some major design differences between the two halves of the centre. Halle Square was modernised, including new skylights, but there is still a major difference in levels of natural light between the original malls and the northern extension. The original 1970s malls were designed to "protect" visitors from the outside, whereas the newer malls seek to maximise natural light.
. The Food-Chain, opened as Voyagers in 1991, is an 800-seat food court
situated on the third floor above the far south-west tip of the centre. It can be reached by an escalator from Market Street
and from the first floor at the south-western tip of the centre close to Argos
and the first floor entrance to Boots.
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, England. The centre was built in the 1970s when many other cities were constructing large malls. Manchester Arndale is the largest of a chain of Arndale Centres built across the UK in the 1960s and 1970s. It was constructed in phases between 1972 and 1979, at a cost of £100 m.
The centre was redeveloped after the 1996 Manchester bombing
1996 Manchester bombing
The 1996 Manchester bombing was an attack carried out by the Provisional Irish Republican Army on 15 June 1996 in Manchester, England. The bomb, placed in a van on Corporation Street in city centre, targeted the city's infrastructure and economy and caused widespread damage, estimated by...
. The centre has a retail floorspace of just under 1500000 ft2 (not including Selfridges
Selfridges
Selfridges, AKA Selfridges & Co, is a chain of high end department stores in the United Kingdom. It was founded by Harry Gordon Selfridge. The flagship store in London's Oxford Street is the second largest shop in the UK and was opened on 15 March 1909.More recently, three other stores have been...
and Marks and Spencer department stores to which it is connected via a link bridge), making it Europe's largest city-centre shopping mall. It is one of the largest shopping centres in the UK with 38 million visitors annually, ahead of the Trafford Centre
Trafford Centre
The Trafford Centre is a large indoor shopping centre and leisure complex situated in the Metropolitan Borough of Trafford in Greater Manchester, close to the Trafford Park industrial estate and approximately 5 miles from Manchester city centre. It is the highest valued shopping centre in the...
which attracts 35 million.
History
The Manchester Arndale was built between 1971–79 on Market Street in Manchester city centreManchester City Centre
Manchester city centre is the central business district of Manchester, England. It lies within the Manchester Inner Ring Road, next to the River Irwell...
by developers, Town & City Properties, the successors to the Arndale Property Trust, with financial backing from the Prudential Assurance Company and Manchester Corporation. The first phase opened in 1975. It was the largest Arndale Centre in the United Kingdom.
Arndale Property Trust
The Arndale Property Trust formed in the early 1950s, took its name from its founders, Arnold Hagenbach and Sam Chippindale. Hagenbach, a YorkshireYorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
man of Swiss
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
extraction owned a chain of baker's shops and had invested in retail premises from 1939. Chippindale was an estate agent and former civil servant from Otley
Otley
-Transport:The main roads through the town are the A660 to the south east, which connects Otley to Bramhope, Adel and Leeds city centre, and the A65 to the west, which goes to Ilkley and Skipton. The A6038 heads to Guiseley, Shipley and Bradford, connecting with the A65...
. Arndale was unusual, but not unique, amongst property companies in being based outside London and specialising in retail property. Hagenbach invested more and was the quieter. Chippindale was blunt and outspoken and able to persuade sceptical northern councils to accept the company's proposals, where London-based developers could not. Arndale bought property north of Market Street in 1952.
Redevelopment plans
The city council recognized before the end of the Second World War that the area around Market Street was in need of redevelopment, and a plan was drawn up between 1942 and 1945 but no progress was made. The city's surveyor in stated in 1962 that, "Manchester [is] crystallized in its Victorian setting ... A new look for the city has been long overdue. ... Its unsightly areas of mixed industrial, commercial and residential development need to be systematically unravelled and redeveloped on comprehensive lines. Only in this way can a City assume its proper place as a regional centre." The corporation used compulsory purchase orders to speed redevelopment at the bomb-damaged Market Place (between the Corn ExchangeCorn Exchange, Manchester
The Triangle is a grade II listed building in Manchester, England. The building was originally used as a corn exchange and was previously named the Corn & Produce Exchange. Following the IRA bomb in 1996 it was renovated and is now a modern shopping mall....
and the Royal Exchange
Royal Exchange, Manchester
The Royal Exchange is a grade II listed Victorian building in Manchester, England. It is located in the city centre on the land bounded by St Ann’s Square, Exchange Street, Market Street, Cross Street and Old Bank Street...
—the development has since been demolished), at the CIS buildings
CIS Tower
The Co-operative Insurance Tower, or CIS Tower, is an office tower building on Miller Street in Manchester, England. It was completed in 1962 and rises to 387 feet in height. The Grade II listed building, which houses Co-operative Financial Services, a part of The Co-operative Group, is...
, and at Piccadilly
City Tower, Manchester
City Tower, is a 30-storey office block situated at Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester, England. It has the highest office space currently available in Manchester standing 107 metres tall. City Tower was completed in 1965, the Plaza complex was constructed by the developers Bernard Sunley and...
. In the view of the surveyor, "These schemes have greatly improved the appearance of the central area of the City ...". The corporation's preferred development was a tower above a two or three storey podium
Podium
A podium is a platform that is used to raise something to a short distance above its surroundings. It derives from the Greek πόδι In architecture a building can rest on a large podium. Podia can also be used to raise people, for instance the conductor of an orchestra stands on a podium as do many...
, the form used in all three developments, and later that of the Arndale. Corporation planners added the land and buildings they owned to those acquired by Arndale to increase the size of the available plot.
Retail centre
Manchester was traditionally the dominant retail centre of the conurbation and region, and Market Street was the main shopping street from about 1850. Manchester's position weakened during the 1960s as the range of goods available elsewhere increased. SalfordCity of Salford
The City of Salford is a city and metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It is named after its largest settlement, Salford, but covers a far larger area which includes the towns of Eccles, Swinton-Pendlebury, Walkden and Irlam which apart from Irlam each have a population of over...
had concentrated its three main retail areas into one, with the aim of eliminating the need for residents to travel to Manchester to shop. Stockport
Stockport
Stockport is a town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on elevated ground southeast of Manchester city centre, at the point where the rivers Goyt and Tame join and create the River Mersey. Stockport is the largest settlement in the metropolitan borough of the same name...
town centre had been cleared of cotton mills to improve its appearance, and a major through route had been closed to build the Merseyway Shopping Centre
Merseyway Shopping Centre
Merseyway Shopping Centre is a large Shopping Centre in Stockport, England, forming the basis of the town's shopping area. It was opened in 1965 and extensively refurbished in 1995. It consists mainly of a large pedestrianised street, where at one point there are two levels of walkways for...
, which doubled local retail spend. In quantitative terms, while in 1961 Manchester's retail spend was 3.7 times that of the next biggest shopping area in the conurbation, by 1971 this had fallen to 2.8 times.
Plan of 1965
A 1965 version of the scheme, costed at £15 million bounded by Market Street, Corporation Street, Withy Grove and High Street was intended to be the UK's biggest single shopping centre. The only change to the boundaries (as of 2009) was in 1973 (i.e. before opening) onto the site of the former Manchester Guardian offices on the opposite side of Market Street. Boots took the 110,000 square feet (gross) extension in its entirety, their biggest store at the time.Town & City Properties
Arndale Property Trust was acquired by Town & City Properties in April 1968. A public enquiry into the development started on 18 June 1968, with a submission that the existing street pattern, while historic, was "hopelessly inadequate for modern requirements". The city planning officer gave evidence that "the development would be comparable with the best carried out in North America and Scandinavia" The scheme was to include seven public houses and a 200-bed hotel. An economist gave evidence that spending in central Manchester would double by 1981. The enquiry finished on 8 July 1968 and reported in early November 1969. The inspector approved the scheme, noting that the region north of Market Street needed redeveloping, and it was sensible to redevelop the frontage. Manchester corporation compulsorily purchased a further 8 acres (3 ha) of property in 1970 using money raised by selling land outside the city bought for overspill housingOverspill estate
An overspill estate is a housing estate planned and built for the rehousing of people from decaying inner city areas usually as part of the process of slum clearance....
.
Pre-1971 streets and buildings
Neither Stewart's The Stones of Manchester (1956) nor Sharp et al.'s survey Manchester Buildings (1966) describe the area or any buildings in particular. Stewart is generally strong on Victorian architecture, and none of its 60 "principal buildings" were within the redevelopment area. Sharp et al. covered older and new buildings; of the many described over fifty are in the city centre but none were in the cleared area. Pevsner
Nikolaus Pevsner
Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner, CBE, FBA was a German-born British scholar of history of art and, especially, of history of architecture...
, writing in 1969 when clearance was imminent, found nothing of note. the town clerk, described the buildings as obsolescent in evidence to the public enquiry. Shop Property predicted in 1971 that as "new buildings replace the existing dilapidated ones" the city centre would lose its Coronation Street
Coronation Street
Coronation Street is a British soap opera set in Weatherfield, a fictional town in Greater Manchester based on Salford. Created by Tony Warren, Coronation Street was first broadcast on 9 December 1960...
image, and become "very attractive" to retailers. The Guardian which had offices in Cross Street wrote in 1976 that Market Street had been "depressing and decaying" for 30 years.
Later descriptions are more complimentary. Spring (in 1979) wrote of "... monstrosities that have ousted the city's grand heritage of nineteenth century commercial and industrial architecture—if the recently completed mammoth and distinctly lavatorial Arndale Centre is anything to go by." Hamilton (in 2001) wrote that the area reflected Manchester's wealth and leadership in the middle of the 19th century, with buildings designed by leading UK architects. Moran (in 2006) called it a "maze of characterful streets".
In the early 1960s the area had several establishments that made Manchester, in Lee's
CP Lee
CP Lee is a musician, author, broadcaster and lecturer from Manchester, England.-Biography:Christopher Paul "CP" Lee is a writer, broadcaster, lecturer and performer who started playing in the North West folk and beat clubs of the 1960s with his band Greasy Bear and became a lynchpin of the punk...
description, a rival to Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
as the "fun city of Europe". Unlicensed coffee bars
Coffeehouse
A coffeehouse or coffee shop is an establishment which primarily serves prepared coffee or other hot beverages. It shares some of the characteristics of a bar, and some of the characteristics of a restaurant, but it is different from a cafeteria. As the name suggests, coffeehouses focus on...
where people listened to live and recorded music did not serve alcohol
Alcoholic beverage
An alcoholic beverage is a drink containing ethanol, commonly known as alcohol. Alcoholic beverages are divided into three general classes: beers, wines, and spirits. They are legally consumed in most countries, and over 100 countries have laws regulating their production, sale, and consumption...
were effectively outside police control. A 1965 police report by plain-clothes
Undercover
Being undercover is disguising one's own identity or using an assumed identity for the purposes of gaining the trust of an individual or organization to learn secret information or to gain the trust of targeted individuals in order to gain information or evidence...
cadets known as the "mod squad", described them as unsanitary, dimly-lit drug dens
Recreational drug use
Recreational drug use is the use of a drug, usually psychoactive, with the intention of creating or enhancing recreational experience. Such use is controversial, however, often being considered to be also drug abuse, and it is often illegal...
, run by "men of colour", where young men would be fleeced of their money and young women trapped into prostitution
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
. The Manchester Corporation Act 1965 was passed after the report and closed most of them. The Cinephone Cinema was the first in Manchester to show 'continental' X-rated films mostly erotica movies. Second-hand book stalls and what Lee described as "Manchester's very own Carnaby Street" had opened by the early 1970s. The Seven Stars on Withy Grove was one of Manchester's oldest pubs, with a licence dating back to 1356; Redford claimed it to be "oldest licensed house in Great Britain", though this was probably not the case.
Design and construction
Victoria University of Manchester
The Victoria University of Manchester was a university in Manchester, England. On 1 October 2004 it merged with the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology to form a new entity, "The University of Manchester".-1851 - 1951:The University was founded in 1851 as Owens College,...
. Womersley, as Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
city architect, was responsible for Park Hill.
The developers and the corporation did not allow the architects a free hand. The developers demanded a closed building with little natural light and rejected a more open, roof-lit, design. The corporation insisted on a bus station, market, car parking, an underground railway station, and provision for deck access to subsequent developments. Cannon Street was to be kept open with no shop frontages. Corporation Street and High Street were allowed shop fronts on the returns to Market Street. Market Street, a busy thoroughfare, had shop fronts as pedestrianisation was proposed, though this did not happen until 1981. The architects, developers, and city council did not communicate well. Display windows were forbidden on most of the external walls of the centre and were inside the centre. The architects realised that "the brief [as] given ... would produce a very introverted building. And we said this would not be attractive".
Construction started in 1972 and the centre opened in stages, with the Arndale Tower and 60 shops opening in September 1976; followed by Knightsbridge Mall (the bridge over Market Street) in May 1977; the northern mall in October 1977; the market hall, Boots, and the bridge to the Shambles (over Corporation Street) in 1978; and the bus station off Cannon Street and anchor stores, Littlewoods
Littlewoods
Littlewoods is the name of a former retail and gambling company founded in Liverpool, Merseyside, England by John Moores in 1923.It started as a shopping catalogue company, processing orders by post in the early 1970s. In 1981, it expanded to a call centre, processing orders via telephone. At its...
and British Home Stores in 1979. On opening, the centre contained 210 shops and over 200 market stalls.
The cost, estimated at £11½ million in the public enquiry in 1968, rose to £26 million by 1972, and to £30 million by 1974, forcing the formation of Manchester Mortgage Corporation, a partnership of Town & City, the Prudential Assurance Company, and Manchester Corporation. The trio remained convinced they were building "the finest shopping centre in Europe". The joint company run by Manchester Corporation, raised £5 million on the stock market, (a first for a company formed by a local authority), after the Prudential admitted it could not fully fund the project. Town & City came close to bankruptcy, forcing them into a reverse takeover of Jeffrey Sterling
Jeffrey Sterling, Baron Sterling of Plaistow
Jeffrey Sterling, Baron Sterling of Plaistow, GCVO, CBE , is a British businessman. He was executive chairman of the shipping line P&O from 1983 to 2005, having joined the board as a non-executive Director on 6 February 1980...
's Sterling Guarantee Trust in April 1974 and a £25M rights issue in 1975–6. Costs reached £46M by 1976, of which £13M came from the council. The final cost, described as "enormous" by Parkinson-Bailey, was £100 million, made up of £11.5 million for land, £44.5 million for the building, and £44 million for fitting out.
Early days
The centre was divided by Market Street and Cannon Street. South of Market Street, on the site of the old Guardian buildings, was a branch of Boots. Market Street was bridged by a mall, Knightsbridge and later Voyager Bridge. The part between Market Street and Cannon Street was mostly two-storey and contained most of the anchor stores and access to the office block. Ground-level entrances were at the upper level from High Street and at the lower level from Corporation Street, taking advantage of a slope of about 24 feet (7 m). A centrally-placed entrance from Market Street entered via a mezzanineMezzanine (architecture)
In architecture, a mezzanine or entresol is an intermediate floor between main floors of a building, and therefore typically not counted among the overall floors of a building. Often, a mezzanine is low-ceilinged and projects in the form of a balcony. The term is also used for the lowest balcony in...
into Hallé Square, a full-height open space. These areas remained fundamentally unchanged in 2009. North of Cannon Street, the lower floor was occupied by the bus station, with the upper floor shops, and 60 flats
Apartment
An apartment or flat is a self-contained housing unit that occupies only part of a building...
above them. At the High Street end was a two-floor market area. Cannon Street was bridged by a mall at the Corporation Street end and underpassed by a tunnel at the High Street end. There was a continuous pathway around the centre, but not at a single level. At the High Street end a multi-storey car park was sited above the market centre and Cannon Street. In all there were 1360 yards of mall. Underneath the centre was a full-circuit full-height service road, ½ mile (0.8 km) in length, with access from Withy Grove. By taking advantage of the change in height, the architects hoped to solve the problem of persuading shoppers to use the upper shopping area. While the northern part had no anchor stores, the car park and bus station meant that foot traffic passed through the area avoiding quiet spots.
The final building was considered excessively large. The Guardian described it in 1978 as "an awful warning against thinking too big in Britain's cities", and "so castle-like in its outer strength that any passing medieval army would automatically besiege it rather than shop in it ...". The underground railway scheme was abandoned by 1976 and the only deck access was across Corporation Street to another Town & City development in the Shambles. At the official opening, one of its champions, Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw, Mayor of Manchester, commented, "I didn't think it would look like that when I saw the balsa wood models". The "unrepentant" architects responded that they had provided what they had been asked to provide. Kenneth Stone said in 1978 "We're not responsible for everything in there, but we're not sorry about the decisions we took as opposed to those which were forced upon us." The critics' opinion did not mellow with time, and it was described as "aggressive externally" in 1991. The Economist noted in 1996 that it had "long been regarded as one of Europe's ugliest shopping centres. ... the epitome of lousy modern architecture ... [the outside] was hated". The Financial Times in 1997 called it "outstandingly ugly" and in 2000 "one of Britain's least-loved buildings".
Norman Shrapnel
Norman Shrapnel , was an English journalist, author, and parliamentary correspondent.Shrapnel was born in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, and was educated at The King's School, Grantham. In 1947, after war service in the RAF, he joined the Manchester Guardian as reporter, book reviewer, and theatre critic...
, the paper's political columnist.
Consequences
A backlash against comprehensive development was underway before the centre opened. Amery and Cruickshank's critical The rape of Britain, with a foreword by John BetjemanJohn Betjeman
Sir John Betjeman, CBE was an English poet, writer and broadcaster who described himself in Who's Who as a "poet and hack".He was a founding member of the Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture...
, was published to mark European Architectural Heritage Year in 1975. The book described the redevelopment of about 20 towns under the heading "scenes of rape" and uses the Arndale as an example of "brutal obliteration" undertaken by "the mind that seriously believes that the centre of Manchester should look like a futuristic vision or a barbaric new city borrowed from Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier , was a Swiss-born French architect, designer, urbanist, writer and painter, famous for being one of the pioneers of what now is called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930...
". In the same year the pressure group SAVE Britain's Heritage
SAVE Britain's Heritage
SAVE Britain's Heritage has been described as the most influential conservation group to have been established since William Morris founded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in 1877. It was created in 1975 - European Architectural Heritage Year - by a group of journalists,...
was formed, in part to discourage the wholesale demolition of unremarkable industrial buildings in the north of England.
Several factors, including the property slump of 1974–6, changes to local government in 1974, and changes in the law after the Poulson affair, in which developers corrupted politicians to expedite schemes against the wider public interest, acted against further developments of the size and type of the Arndale. Built Environment noted that while Arndales are "an asset to any town", this scheme "smacks of opportunism beyond the general interest of the city as a whole".
The presence of over a million square feet of retail space distorted shopping patterns in Manchester city centre and many established retailers and retail districts struggled to adapt. Oldham Street
Oldham Street
Oldham Street is in Manchester city centre and forms part of the city's historic Northern Quarter district. The Northern Quarter dominated by buildings that were built before World War II....
lost large stores from their long-term sites and it was clear the area would suffer. Shop and former textile warehouses closures comparable to those cleared for the Arndale, meant the area quickly became run-down and in Bennison et al.'s eyes "almost fossilised". The area remained run down until it was revitalised as the Northern Quarter in the late 1990s. Piccadilly Plaza, completed in 1966, lost trade when the Arndale opened and was put up for sale for £10M in the middle of 1979; as a shopping centre, it never recovered.
Stocks argues that these factors lay behind the Greater Manchester County Council
Greater Manchester County Council
The Greater Manchester County Council — also known as the Greater Manchester Council — was the top-tier local government administrative body for Greater Manchester from 1974 to 1986...
's (GMC) strategic view that the county had too much retail capacity. From 1977 onwards the GMC consistently opposed further development, and would not support any before 1986. Trade increased in the early 1980s, though GMC policy against development and for retaining the relative importance of the retail centres remained. By the mid 1980s, the trend in retailing had moved from city-centres to out-of-town. The opening of Meadowhall Centre in 1990 blighting the entire Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
city centre.
The GMC was abolished in 1986 and, in Stocks' terms, "applications for major shopping schemes began to slop over the unmanned dam". A consequence of pent-up applications was that the adjacent newly-created authorities of Salford
City of Salford
The City of Salford is a city and metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It is named after its largest settlement, Salford, but covers a far larger area which includes the towns of Eccles, Swinton-Pendlebury, Walkden and Irlam which apart from Irlam each have a population of over...
and Trafford
Trafford
The Metropolitan Borough of Trafford is a metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It has a population of 211,800, covers , and includes the towns of Altrincham, Partington, Sale, Stretford, and Urmston...
found themselves in a "prisoner's dilemma
Prisoner's dilemma
The prisoner’s dilemma is a canonical example of a game, analyzed in game theory that shows why two individuals might not cooperate, even if it appears that it is in their best interest to do so. It was originally framed by Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher working at RAND in 1950. Albert W...
" over competing out-of-town schemes, at Barton Locks
Barton-upon-Irwell
Barton-upon-Irwell is a suburban area of Eccles, Greater Manchester, England.-History:...
and Dumplington
Dumplington
Dumplington is an area in Urmston, Greater Manchester. It is dominated by the shopping complex centred on the Trafford Centre.Dumplington was one of several hamlets in the township of Barton on Irwell, in the ancient ecclesiastical parish...
, broadly similar in size to the Arndale. By 1989 planning applications for almost five million square feet of retail space in Greater Manchester were unresolved. A public enquiry (followed by action in the appeal court, and a case in the House of Lords) approved the Dumplington proposal (the Trafford Centre
Trafford Centre
The Trafford Centre is a large indoor shopping centre and leisure complex situated in the Metropolitan Borough of Trafford in Greater Manchester, close to the Trafford Park industrial estate and approximately 5 miles from Manchester city centre. It is the highest valued shopping centre in the...
). Construction began in 1995.
Refurbishment
The typical life span of a shopping centre is about 10–20 years when the owners may decide whether to do nothing, refurbish or demolish. In the Arndale, refurbishment began about six years after opening. Artificial lighting and undistinguishable malls, with multiple dead ends and no obvious circular route meant that shoppers were, in Morris's words, "bewildered by its maze-like intensity". Parkinson-Bailey described the centre as "never the pleasantest place to shop in ... hot and stuffy". Criticisms were addressed in a £½M upgrade in which roof lights were inserted to allow in daylight and pot-plants introduced. To improve navigation and to tone down the appearance, the flooring of each area was given a distinct colour scheme, decorative ironwork was installed, a fountain placed at one corner, and a double-floor height aviaryAviary
An aviary is a large enclosure for confining birds. Unlike cages, aviaries allow birds a larger living space where they can fly; hence, aviaries are also sometimes known as flight cages...
placed at another. The Arndale's own radio station, Centre Sound, was installed. Hallé Square housed a food court
Food court
A food court is generally an indoor plaza or common area within a facility that is contiguous with the counters of multiple food vendors and provides a common area for self-serve dining. Food courts may be found in shopping malls and airports, and in various regions may be a standalone development...
by day, and could be used as a concert area by night if required. Beddington describes the results as "workmanlike but unromantic".
Town & City changed its name to Sterling Guarantee Trust in 1983, and in February 1985 merged with the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (universally called ), also run by Jeffrey Sterling. decided to refurbish Knightsbridge (the bridge over Market Street) and double the rents. Work took place in 1990–1, and the most visible change was a £9M food court (Voyagers) in an area not previously open to the public. The refurbishment was a success and increased the centre's popularity. Other refurbishments took place in 1991–3, despite opposition from traders who objected to changes that might take the centre 'up-market'. The northern part of the centre saw little investment for years, and the market hall was seen as ripe for improvement.
The bus station became Manchester's busiest, handling 30,000 passengers and 1500 bus movements per day by 1991. It was unpopular with travellers, especially women. Described as "dirty and horrible", its poorly lit interior was identified by Taylor as inherently threatening and a "landscape of fear".
As a shopping centre it was outstandingly successful, and the critics' opinions were not universally held – especially by its owners. By 1996 the Arndale was fully let, raised £20M a year in rents, was the seventh busiest shopping area in the UK in terms of sales, and was visited by 750,000 people a week. The poet Lemn Sissay
Lemn Sissay
Lemn Sissay MBE is an award-winning British author and broadcaster of Ethiopian and Eritrean parents.He is known for performances of his poetry and also with jazz fusion groups. He is a playwright, and has worked on radio and television...
wrote "The Arndale Centre was always just the Arndale Centre. A palace of Perspex and people. A light extravaganza.
... a shopper's heaven on earth. In all its gargantuan glory I love it. Whether it is ugly or not is a purely subjective opinion. It is wonderful inside."
1996 IRA bombing
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Provisional Irish Republican Army is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation whose aim was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and bring about a socialist republic within a united Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion...
(IRA) was blamed for the incidents, in which the devices were placed in soft furnishings during shopping hours. After the second attack, Christmas shopping continued much as normal the following day in the unaffected stores. An unnamed fireman noted "What bugs me is if there's a big one planted there's a lot of glass around here, and a lot of people will be killed".
Two men parked a van containing a 1500 kg (3,306.9 lb) bomb on Corporation Street between Marks & Spencer
Marks & Spencer
Marks and Spencer plc is a British retailer headquartered in the City of Westminster, London, with over 700 stores in the United Kingdom and over 300 stores spread across more than 40 countries. It specialises in the selling of clothing and luxury food products...
and the Arndale at about 9:20 on Saturday morning, 15 June 1996. At about 9:45, a coded warning was received by Granada TV
Granada Television
Granada Television is the ITV contractor for North West England. Based in Manchester since its inception, it is the only surviving original ITA franchisee from 1954 and is ITV's most successful....
. The usual weekend population of shoppers was supplemented by football fans in town for the Russia
Russia national football team
The Russia national football team represents Russia in association football and is controlled by the Russian Football Union , the governing body for football in Russia. Russia's home grounds are Luzhniki Stadium, Lokomotiv Stadium , and Petrovsky Stadium in St.Petersburg and their head coach is...
v Germany
Germany national football team
The Germany national football team is the football team that has represented Germany in international competition since 1908. It is governed by the German Football Association , which was founded in 1900....
match of UEFA Euro 1996, due to be staged on Sunday at Old Trafford
Old Trafford
Old Trafford commonly refers to two sporting arenas:* Old Trafford, home of Manchester United F.C.* Old Trafford Cricket Ground, home of Lancashire County Cricket ClubOld Trafford can also refer to:...
. About 80,000 people were cleared from the area by police and store staff using procedures developed after an IRA bombing incident in 1992, assisted by outside staff experienced in crowd control drafted in to help with the football fans. The bomb exploded at about 11:15, shortly after the army bomb squad
Ammunition Technician
An Ammunition Technician is a British Army soldier trained to inspect, repair, test and store, and modify all ammunition and explosives used by the British Army...
arrived from Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
and began making it safe. Nobody was killed, but over 200 people were injured, some seriously, mostly by flying glass, though one pregnant shopper was thrown in the air by the blast.
In all 1200 properties on 43 streets were affected. Marks and Spencer's and the adjacent Longridge House were condemned as unsafe within days, and were demolished. The Arndale's frontage on Corporation Street and the footbridge were structurally damaged. The reinsurance
Reinsurance
Reinsurance is insurance that is purchased by an insurance company from another insurance company as a means of risk management...
company Swiss Re
Swiss Re
Swiss Reinsurance Company Ltd , generally known as Swiss Re, is a Swiss reinsurance company. It is the world’s second-largest reinsurer, after having acquired GE Insurance Solutions. The company has its headquarters in Zurich...
estimated that the final insurance payout was over £400M, making it, at the time, the most expensive man-made disaster ever.
Recent developments
As part of the renovation most of the tiles have been removed and a replaced by sandstone and glass cladding. Manchester Arndale houses Next, the company's largest store with the largest glass store frontage in the UK. It also houses the largest Office Shoe store outside London as of April 2010.
By the late 1990s the centre was no longer owned by the Arndale Property Trust. A rebranding was proposed, but abandoned. Today the centre is jointly owned by PRUPIM
Prudential Property Investment Managers
PRUPIM is a top 20 global real estate investment manager, providing integrated services for fund management, asset management and property management. PRUPIM, part of the M&G Group of Companies, is the real estate investment arm of Prudential plc in the UK and Europe...
and Capital Shopping Centres
Capital Shopping Centres
Capital Shopping Centres Group plc is a United Kingdom-based Real Estate Investment Trust , largely focused on shopping centre management and development. Formerly named Liberty International plc, it changed its name to that of its major subsidiary in May 2010 after demerging its Capital & Counties...
.
Manchester wasn't the only city to build a major shopping centre in its city centre, the desire to provide modern shopping facilities was prevalent among most councils in major cities, where the old Victorian buildings couldn't accommodate modern retailers. Other examples from around the same time include the Bull Ring, Birmingham and the Merrion Centre, Leeds.
Redevelopment
The centre was badly damaged in the 1996 Manchester City Centre bombing by the Provisional IRAProvisional Irish Republican Army
The Provisional Irish Republican Army is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation whose aim was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and bring about a socialist republic within a united Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion...
and required extensive redevelopment
Redevelopment
Redevelopment is any new construction on a site that has pre-existing uses.-Description:Variations on redevelopment include:* Urban infill on vacant parcels that have no existing activity but were previously developed, especially on Brownfield land, such as the redevelopment of an industrial site...
work. In the immediate aftermath of the bombing the southern half of the centre was repaired and refurbished. The northern half was patched up with buses originally stopping on Cannon Street itself, before eventually being replaced by Shudehill Interchange
Shudehill Interchange
Shudehill Interchange, known locally as just Shudehill, is a transport interchange located between Manchester Victoria station and the Northern Quarter in Manchester.It comprises a Manchester Metrolink station and a bus station.-Bus station:...
in January 2006. Marks and Spencer, which was particularly badly damaged in the explosion, reopened in a separate building, linked to the main mall on the first floor by a glass footbridge
Footbridge
A footbridge or pedestrian bridge is a bridge designed for pedestrians and in some cases cyclists, animal traffic and horse riders, rather than vehicular traffic. Footbridges complement the landscape and can be used decoratively to visually link two distinct areas or to signal a transaction...
which was designed by Stephen Hodder
Stephen Hodder
Stephen Hodder MBE is an English architect who won the RIBA's Stirling Prize in 1996. He is also a partner at his own practice Hodder Associates which was founded in 1992.-Background:...
. Shortly after opening the large branch, the building was split into two independent shops. Half remained a branch of Marks and Spencer while the side facing The Triangle
Corn Exchange, Manchester
The Triangle is a grade II listed building in Manchester, England. The building was originally used as a corn exchange and was previously named the Corn & Produce Exchange. Following the IRA bomb in 1996 it was renovated and is now a modern shopping mall....
became a branch of Selfridges
Selfridges
Selfridges, AKA Selfridges & Co, is a chain of high end department stores in the United Kingdom. It was founded by Harry Gordon Selfridge. The flagship store in London's Oxford Street is the second largest shop in the UK and was opened on 15 March 1909.More recently, three other stores have been...
.
In Autumn 2003, as the final stage of rebuilding the city centre after the bombing, the whole of the half of the centre north of Cannon Street was closed and demolished. Over the next two to three years, the northern half of the centre was completely rebuilt and extended. The first phase of the "northern extension", known as 'Exchange Court', opened on 20 October 2005. Exchange Court features Britain's flagship and the world's largest Next store. This was followed by the second phase known as 'New Cannon Street'. This opened on 6 April 2006. Stores in this phase include a new flagship
Flagship
A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, reflecting the custom of its commander, characteristically a flag officer, flying a distinguishing flag...
branch of TopShop
Topshop
Topshop is a British clothes retailer with shops in over 20 countries and online operations in a number of its markets. Its sales come primarily from women's clothing and fashion accessories...
and Topman
Topman
TOPMAN is the stand-alone fashion business counterpart of Topshop that caters exclusively to men’s clothing. A part of the Arcadia Group, which also owns Burton, Miss Selfridge, Wallis, Evans, British Home Stores and Dorothy Perkins, Topman has a chain of high-street men's clothing stores located...
.
On 7 September 2006 the third and final phase of the northern extension opened. The new Winter Garden
Winter Garden
Winter Garden may refer to:* A winter garden, winter-hardy plants grown for winter interest and decoration, or to be harvested for food between winter and early spring.-Places:* Winter Garden, California, former community in Kern County...
features stores such as a new HMV
HMV
His Master's Voice is a trademark in the music business, and for many years was the name of a large record label. The name was coined in 1899 as the title of a painting of the dog Nipper listening to a wind-up gramophone...
(formerly Zavvi & Virgin Megastores), a Waterstone's
Waterstone's
Waterstone's is a British book specialist established in 1982 by Tim Waterstone that employs around 4,500 staff throughout the United Kingdom and Europe....
bookshop, and a new single-level unit for the Arndale Market. The completed mall provides a link from Exchange Square
Exchange Square (Manchester)
Exchange Square is located in the English city of Manchester. The square was heavily redeveloped after the IRA 1996 Manchester bombing. This reconstruction included the moving of two pubs to make room for the new Marks & Spencer store....
and The Triangle
Corn Exchange, Manchester
The Triangle is a grade II listed building in Manchester, England. The building was originally used as a corn exchange and was previously named the Corn & Produce Exchange. Following the IRA bomb in 1996 it was renovated and is now a modern shopping mall....
to the Northern Quarter, and from Market Street
Market Street (Manchester, England)
Market Street is one of the principal retail streets in Manchester, England. It runs from its junction with Piccadilly and Mosley Street, close to Piccadilly Gardens, in the east to where it meets St. Mary's Gate at the crossroads with Exchange Street and New Cathedral Street in the west. St Mary's...
to The Printworks
The Printworks
The Printworks is an entertainment venue, located on Withy Grove in Manchester city centre, England. It opened in 2000 and was launched with fireworks and a radio roadshow featuring many local and international acts, headlined by Lionel Richie....
.
The southern half of the centre was refurbished, and there are some major design differences between the two halves of the centre. Halle Square was modernised, including new skylights, but there is still a major difference in levels of natural light between the original malls and the northern extension. The original 1970s malls were designed to "protect" visitors from the outside, whereas the newer malls seek to maximise natural light.
Food court
Like many large shopping malls, Manchester Arndale has a food courtFood court
A food court is generally an indoor plaza or common area within a facility that is contiguous with the counters of multiple food vendors and provides a common area for self-serve dining. Food courts may be found in shopping malls and airports, and in various regions may be a standalone development...
. The Food-Chain, opened as Voyagers in 1991, is an 800-seat food court
Food court
A food court is generally an indoor plaza or common area within a facility that is contiguous with the counters of multiple food vendors and provides a common area for self-serve dining. Food courts may be found in shopping malls and airports, and in various regions may be a standalone development...
situated on the third floor above the far south-west tip of the centre. It can be reached by an escalator from Market Street
Market Street (Manchester, England)
Market Street is one of the principal retail streets in Manchester, England. It runs from its junction with Piccadilly and Mosley Street, close to Piccadilly Gardens, in the east to where it meets St. Mary's Gate at the crossroads with Exchange Street and New Cathedral Street in the west. St Mary's...
and from the first floor at the south-western tip of the centre close to Argos
Argos (retailer)
Argos is the largest general-goods retailer in the United Kingdom and Ireland with over 800 stores. It is unique amongst major retailers in the UK in that it is a catalogue merchant...
and the first floor entrance to Boots.
See also
- List of shopping malls by country
- Trafford CentreTrafford CentreThe Trafford Centre is a large indoor shopping centre and leisure complex situated in the Metropolitan Borough of Trafford in Greater Manchester, close to the Trafford Park industrial estate and approximately 5 miles from Manchester city centre. It is the highest valued shopping centre in the...
- Manchester's out of town shopping centre in nearby TraffordTraffordThe Metropolitan Borough of Trafford is a metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It has a population of 211,800, covers , and includes the towns of Altrincham, Partington, Sale, Stretford, and Urmston...
External links
- Manchester Arndale Centre home page
- Manchester Arndale Market home page for Manchester Arndale's Market
- Capital Shopping Centres (CSC) - Manchester Arndale