Croydon

Key Facts

Total floorspace: 1.9 million sq ft (174,170 sq m)

Missing retailers in central Croydon: Warehouse, Gap, Dune, Envy, Schuh, Coast, Saks, Habitat, Jigsaw, Lakeland

Top five under-sized retailers in central Croydon: Boots (-25,632 sq ft), Debenhams (-9,994 sq ft), New Look (-9,459 sq ft), HMV (-7,786 sq ft), Argos Extra (-7,420 sq ft)

Top five centres that share the central Croydon total catchment: Bromley (11 per cent), Purley Way (9 per cent), Sutton (8 per cent), London West End (7 per cent), Tooting (3 per cent)

Area of highest rental growth over the past five years: North End (2.1 per cent)

Average rental growth over the past five years: 2.5 per cent

New developments: Park Place, measuring 1.1 million sq ft (100,330 sq m), is set for completion in July 2011

Source: Experian/rental data from Churston Heard

The deeply unfashionable London suburb of Croydon is in need of an overhaul. Its future as a retail destination is said to depend on the success of the Park Place scheme, which is being developed by Park Place Partnership, a joint venture between Minerva and Lend Lease.

The development adjoins the Whitgift Centre, North End and Katharine Street and includes 900,000 sq ft (83,610 sq m) of retail and leisure space split over three levels. However, its completion is some way off. Construction will start next year and is not due to finish until 2011.

The project is targeting upmarket brands and flagship stores similar in style to Bluewater in Kent. Mark Boyes, senior development manager for Park Place at Lend Lease Retail, says: “Croydon doesn’t need another covered shopping centre. There are lots of shops in the town already, so we need to offer something different to pull in retailers that will attract the more affluent shopper and pull Croydon up a notch in terms of its ranking.

“We want to bring something of the Bluewater experience to Croydon in the brands that we offer. In the same way that New York was cleaned up and now houses flagship stores, as Croydon cleans itself up and we bring in aspirational stores, the affluent shoppers who go to Kingston or Bromley, or even the West End, will start to think of the town as a viable alternative,” says Boyes.

Park Place includes a department store anchor, which is expected to be John Lewis. Because of this, a question mark still hangs over the future of Allders’ flagship store in Croydon, which was rescued from administration by entrepreneur Harold Tillman. The Allders site forms part of the Park Place development and, although the council is nervous about potential job losses in the town, the space is likely to be redeveloped. Allders is in talks with Minerva and Lend Lease about other opportunities and is expected to take two sites – one for furniture and one for fashion – in the new centre.

Agents do not expect Park Place to have a detrimental effect on other schemes, such as the Centrale and Whitgift centres and Croydon’s high street shops. Most forecast that the development, along with a planned facelift of the town centre, will help Croydon climb the ranks as a shopping destination, bringing in more shoppers overall, thus benefiting all the town’s retailers.

Ben Gemmill, senior surveyor at DTZ, the joint letting agent with Douglas Stephens for the Whitgift Centre, says: “If John Lewis comes to Croydon it will move the whole area on. Whitgift will get a smaller slice of those new shoppers, but the pie will be much bigger.”

Demographics

Population 3.9 million

Total retail spend£18.63 billion

Weighted shopper population 405,988

Index of population with internet access 110

Cars per household 0.98

Annual gross household income£39,577

Most over-represented occupation Associate professional and technical

Most over-represented age band 25-34

Source: Experian