Rockin' Shopping Centre

Published 28th Oct 2010

Rockin' Shopping Centre

Business leaders are hoping for some good news from bosses at developers Westfield, whose £389m planned retail site on Broadway, Bradford, has been mothballed since 2008.

The Australian-based company is sending two of its top brass in the UK to speak at the next meeting of the Bradford Property Forum and anticipation is growing that they will have something positive to say.

Forum chairman Andrew Mason said he was delighted Westfield was sending two big hitters to the meeting.

He said: “I’m always an optimist, but this is great news. They wanted to come and hopefully they will have something definite to say about the postponed Bradford site.

“Even if they only tell us that they cannot start until a certain date, that will be better than the uncertainty that exists at present.

“We worked closely with Westfield on the project to turn the development site into the temporary urban park, into which they put about £150,000.

“We developed closer working links with the company and my impression remains that they are committed to the Bradford plan and we must be prepared to continue working with them “Recent trends are a cause for hope with the UK economy maintaining a higher than expected level of growth and work starting at other retail schemes in the county.

“Until recently much of the investment went into housing but retail schemes are now looking a much better prospect, especially as investors are not getting much of a return from record low interest rates.”

According to reports, Westfield is looking to sell part of the shopping centre it is building at the 2012 London Olympics site to a new fund backed by some of the world’s largest property investors.

Reports claim Westfield has been in talks to sell a stake of as much as £750m in the £1.5bn scheme This could lead to Westfield looking to ‘de-risk’ other projects in the pipeline with investment partners for some of its other schemes in the UK.

Mr Mason said de-risking was not unusual in the development market and Newmason was looking for partners for a scheme in which it is involved.

Westfield said earlier this year it would start work on up to $1bn of schemes every year after seeing retail conditions stabilise.