Around 90 per cent of shops already let to Top Shop, Tiffany, Boots and Louis Vuitton
Property developer Westfield have shrugged off concerns that the credit crunch may affect the new White City Shopping Centre, due to open in October.
Speaking to a Guardian reporter this week, Dave Slade, an executive for Westfield, said the downturn was a 'passing phase' and that it would not be long until people were hitting the shops again.
He said: "We've been building shopping centres for 50 years and have opened in all sorts of economic circumstances."
Westfield London, he insists, is now more than 90 per cent let to shops ranging from Boots to Louis Vuitton and from Topshop to Tiffany.
This week, the store "shells" were handed over to shopfitters and 2,000 additional workmen are moving in to fix shelves, mirrors, counters and tills. There are now 3,200 workmen on site.
When the doors eventually open there will also be a chance for shoppers to enjoy a 13-screen cinema, a spa and about 50 restaurants around a central atrium and along an "eat street" outside the centre, which will stay open until midnight. Some 7,000 jobs will be created.
Michael Gutman, managing director of Westfield UK/Europe, was equally upbeat: "The essential point is that we are long-term investors," he says.
"We don't take a lot of notice of these short-term fluctuations. We like the fundamentals of London. It's one of the world's great destinations, it has above-average growth in UK retail sales and, like elsewhere in the UK, it is undersupplied by high-quality retail space."
However, fast food junkies may have to look elsewhere. There will be no McDonald's or KFC in the new shopping centre, and plastic knives and polystyrene boxes have been banned from the centre.
Emma Midgley
August 8, 2008
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