After nearly a decade of big talk and little action, the collapse of the £1.4bn redevelopment of Croydon town centre left many wondering whether the site was dead and buried. Until last week, when URW announced 12 new retail signings.
Stuck as it was between landlord giants Westfield and Hammerson, in 2013 the Croydon Partnership joint venture promised to put the area on the outskirts of southeast London “at the heart of London’s future prosperity”, according to then mayor Boris Johnson.
Its goals were as lofty as the rhetoric around it: some 200,000 sq ft of retail, leisure and residential offerings anchoring a wider 1.5 million sq ft redevelopment of the surrounding area, creating over 5,000 new local jobs in the process.
Eight years of inactivity followed, where the twin shopping centres left on the site – the Whitgift and Centrale – were both earmarked for demolition and effectively left to atrophy without upkeep or investment as deadlines came, changed and went by without a spade in the ground.
This created a vicious cycle for both landlords and tenants. Dimly lit and poorly maintained shopping centres meant less footfall, which led to falling revenues. Less revenue meant occupiers struggling to pay rents and service charges. This led to empty shops, and these already unappealing shopping spaces became ever more empty. Rinse and repeat.
However, just last week, over a decade after the Croydon Partnership was first signed, original co-signatory Westfield (now Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW)) announced 12 new retail signings at the site, saying demand for Croydon was at an “all-time high”.
Is Croydon, in a comeback worthy of Lazarus, finally about to fulfil its potential, or is this just the latest in a long series of false dawns?
Too many cooks
Many reasons have been given over the decade for the failure of the original Croydon Partnership, from a strained relationship between the two landlords and the struggles of traditional shopping centre anchors like department stores and mid-market fashion retailers at the end of the last decade, to Byzantine planning and zoning regulations and, of course, the final nail – the pandemic.
Could the biggest issue of them all, however, have been simply too many cooks spoiling the broth? URW, which bought out former partner Hammerson’s 50% stake in April 2023, certainly seems to think so.
“Since taking full ownership of London’s next major and most exciting regeneration zone in Croydon, we have been busy building a wider external team to commence work on a new vision and master plan in partnership with the community, the Mayor of Croydon and local shareholders,” says URW head of development Penny Cameron.
“We are excited to embark on a fresh journey to uncover the huge potential that this vibrant south London destination has to offer, while we continue to invest in Central & Whitgift through attracting new brands and creating a programme of events to engage our visitors.
“This recent flurry of new signings demonstrates the commitment from existing and new retailers and we look forward to announcing more in the coming months.”
While the 12 new signings to Croydon aren’t exactly household names – they include Beaverbrook’s new venture Loupe, footwear retailer Deichmann and a Chopstix noodle bar – founder and CEO of JDM Retail Jonathan De Mello says they represent a good stopgap while URW moves forward with its redevelopment plans.
“I think this is a bit of a stopgap to fill some space and get some rent coming in. Long term, I think, once they’ve had a chance to implement some of their development plans, I’m sure you’ll see a lot more household name retailers going there.
“The area is very well populated. Certain parts of it are very affluent, if you look at the wider area, so there’s definitely going to be a strong demand from retailers. Southeast London is really underserved by this kind of retail offering, so in the longer term I’d say its prospects are very good.”
New hope or false dawn?
In 2023, when URW took sole control of the redevelopment, mayor Jason Perry said he hoped the final project would bring Croydon the same boost that White City and Stratford districts have enjoyed from their respective Westfield shopping centres.
Croydon residents and retailers have been promised “transformational regeneration” for a decade now. Both will be wondering whether Croydon is finally on the cusp of these promises being fulfilled, or whether this is just the latest, and possibly cruellest, false dawn on the project yet?
Diane Wehrle, retail and destination insights expert at Rendle Intelligence, believes that, under URW, the Croydon redevelopment will finally come to fruition.
“I’ve seen urban regeneration projects come and go; they always take a long time and there are always highs and lows. Croydon has had its fair share of lows, none of which have necessarily been its fault. Now there’s a new landscape for them to move forward.
“If you look at the retail landscape, a lot has changed since 2013. For one thing, there aren’t really any other projects of the scale of Croydon happening around London. There’s a gap in the catchment and it’s got great accessibility to London.
“The catchment is also quite young in terms of demographics and the old rules around retail have been re-written. It used to be that people wouldn’t travel out of London to shop, but the pandemic and hybrid working has changed that massively. There’s a lot of reasons why the site should be successful.”
While the road to the long-promised full redevelopment of the site remains a long one, URW has at least reinforced its commitment to the Croydon project with its new signings.
After more than a decade of inertia, Croydon is now at least headed in the right direction.
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