The current owner Hermes had planned to spend £70 million investing in a complete overhaul of the shopping centre which would have included building a cinema plus many new shops and restaurants. This had originally been planned to start earlier this year but was postponed until 2018 due to planning issues over proposed changes to the entrance.
Instead there may now be no extension or just a further postponement as the UK developer British Land is reportedly close to completing the purchase of Royal Victoria Place.
British Land, the prospective purchasers of Royal Victoria Place are one of the UK's biggest property developers with an extensive portfolio of properties worth at least £13 billion, which includes the famous "Cheesegrater" building in the City of London. If the centre is sold to by Hermes to British Land, then the new owners will have the opportunity to invest further in their new property and still go ahead with the proposed extension to the shopping centre and add at least 10 new shops or restaurants.
Questions have been raised about whether the fact that there are a large number of shops empty in the shopping centre is related to the proposed extension. The fact that Hermes may have sold Royal Victoria Place is not supposed to be related to any difficulties involving the company but is said to be part of their long term overall investment strategy.
News in the same category
February 2019 will see Zara open their biggest store ever, in Essex. Zara will be increasing the size of their existing shop at the Intu Lakeside shopping centre, meaning that they will not take up an area of 35,000 square foot.
Liverpool is due to become home to a very unusual and very specific shop: a store dedicated entirely to the popular doll Barbie and her dream world of friends and accessories.
This is a win-win situation: Sainsbury's has space left in its stores, and Argos wants to offer more convenience to its customers. Ten Argos outlets will open in Sainsbury's locations within the next few months.
Evans Cycles have opened a new store at the Glasgow Fort shopping centre. This is their third store in the city and their fifth in Scotland, with the other outlets in Edinburgh and Aberdeen.
