1 February 2016 | Author/Destination: Great Britain / Großbritannien | Rubric: General, House of the Month, Shopping
Reading Time: 9 minutes
© Fay1982-cc-by-sa-4.0
Bluewater Shopping Centre (commonly referred to as
Bluewater) is an out of town
shopping centre in
Stone (postally
Greenhithe),
Kent, outside the
M25 Orbital motorway, 17.8 miles (28.6 km) east south-east of
London‘s centre. Opened on 16 March 1999 in a former chalk quarry after three years of building, the site including car parks occupies 240 acres (97 ha) and has a sales floor area of 154,000 m2 (1,600,000 ft2) over two levels, making it the
fourth-largest shopping centre in the UK (after the
MetroCentre,
Trafford Centre and
Westfield Stratford City). Elsewhere in Europe only
Istanbul‘s
Cevahir Mall and
Vienna‘s
Shopping City Süd are bigger. The floor plan is a triangular shape with 330 stores, including 3 anchors, 40 cafés and restaurants, and a 13-screen cinema. The centre employs 7,000 people and serves over 27 million visitors a year. A main rival is the
Lakeside Shopping Centre and its two retail parks by road 8 miles (13 km) away in
West Thurrock, Essex, just across the
River Thames or 3.2 miles (5.1 km) point-to-point. It is owned by four major UK institutions,
Prudential plc and
PRUPIM (35%),
Land Securities (30%), the
Lend Lease Retail Partnership (25%) and
Hermes (10%).
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