Delivering shopping centre engineering services
The retail sector is an important part of the UK economy with city centre and out of town shopping centres being a key element of the retail landscape.
Shopping centres see significant footfall year-round, particularly in the run-up to Christmas with a huge increase in visitors buying gifts supported by promotions such as Black Friday and mid-season sales. However, changes in retail behaviour, such as on-line shopping, have meant that shopping centres have needed to evolve to meet new consumer demands.
Many cities now have shopping centres that offer more than just retail outlets, they also tend to feature a range of cafes, bars and restaurants together with extensive leisure activities including cinemas, casinos, ten pin bowling and a range of newer activity based leisure offers featuring new ways of delivering traditional sports or activities such as football, cricket, darts and golf. In addition, shopping centres are developing their land banks and roofscapes to provide development opportunities such as offices, residential, hotels and student accommodation.
Recent developments have seen the integration of health sector offers into shopping centres with a diverse range of businesses such as laser surgery, diagnostics, women’s health and hair clinics as well blood donor clinics being established within the centres; these changes in the traditional retail profile are meant to stimulate footfall, increase rental income and position the shopping centre as a `lifestyle destination`.
Our team are aware of these trends and we can be engaged, with confidence based on our extensive track record, to assist in the support and delivery of all shopping centre engineering services
The Westfield name is synonymous with successful shopping centres around the world and the Cudd Bentley team of engineers have worked alongside the UK Westfield team on both Westfield London or White City as it is known, as well as Stratford City shopping centre in East London. These shopping centres are acknowledged as exemplar models for retail delivery in the UK
White City
White City was a much-anticipated development over 1,600,000 ft2 comprising retail units, a food court, a cinema, an underground carpark and office space. The shopping centre was opened in 2008 with extensions in 2018 and became the largest urban shopping centre in the UK and Europe. Our team was engaged to produce employer’s requirements and monitor contract works. The mechanical and electrical engineering services included engineered fire and life safety systems (bespoke systems) rainwater and above-ground drainage, service connection for both retail and catering tenants from district heating and cooling systems and much, much more. You can read more about the full scope of Cudd Bentley’s involvement in this complex and ambitious shopping centre in our case study.
Stratford City
In September 2011, Westfield launched another major urban shopping centre called Stratford City. For this project, Cudd Bentley personnel were seconded into the Westfield team. Our engineering experts delivered support for utilities to the site that included:
- 132kV/11kV distribution
- CCHP network
- Energy Centre
- IP and LPG
- Telecom ducts
- Water
- Foul and surface water sewers
Strong, effective communication and productive collaboration with the team at Westfield ensured this exceptional new shopping centre was successfully delivered with retail, cinema, office residential, food courts and underground car parking.
Other Shopping Centres
We also partnered with the Westfield team to provide employer’s requirements and monitor and vet contractors through the design and installation process at The Broadway in Bradford as well as key involvement with many Westfield regional shopping centres such as Guildford Friary Centre, Royal Victoria at Tunbridge Wells and the Eagle Centre at Derby
We also have extensive shopping centre experience with other developers and operators and have completed design schemes at many centres including Lakeside, Harlequin Watford, Chimes at Uxbridge and St Annes in Harrow
Refurbishment and redevelopment of shopping centres
There have been other occasions where we have delivered shopping centre engineering services to existing retail areas that require refurbishment and redevelopment. Our mechanical and electrical engineers in these instances are appointed to assist in working with existing utility systems and to facilitate the design of systems that integrate seamlessly with the current infrastructure.
Sustainable and cost-effective shopping centres
Our clients want energy-efficient and cost-effective solutions in desirable spaces that people want to visit and spend time in. Ensuring for example that air quality and temperature are at levels that ensure shoppers are comfortable whilst visiting the centres is critical. Our skilled engineers partner with clients to build systems that are easy to maintain and run and have sustainability at the heart.
Our team have worked on an extensive range of shopping centre projects, you can see some of those case studies by clicking here and if you would like to talk to our shopping centre engineers about work, please get in touch.