Cumbernauld Town Centre

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Cumbernauld town centre is the main shopping centre for the New town of Cumbernauld, Scotland. It is widely accepted as the UK's first shopping mall and was the world's first multi-level covered town centre [1]. The centre has now been expanded by the newly completed addition of the Antonine Centre. The new centre links to the existing one via walkways and lifts.

East elevation, Cumbernauld Shopping Centre 2005

1 History
2 Modern times
3 Future
4 References
5 External links

[edit] History

Construction commenced in 1955 under the plans of architect Geoffrey Copcutt. After the building was started, it was believed to be an example of Utopian Engineering by architects; however, during construction, Logan Construction went bankrupt and left sparse detailed structural engineering plans. It was widely anticipated and upon its official opening it was visited by students to look into the design.

The penthouse apartments were found to have significant structural flaws in the main pillars and tenants were forced to move out. The penthouses were then converted into additional office space. In 1971 phase 2 was started and at the time had the largest supermarket in Scotland. The Corporation sought the building of a department store and this was completed in 1975 as phase 3. The store was built for Woolworths with two levels of underground parking; later this store was sold to Asda. In the mid '70's the Golden Eagle Hotel went bankrupt and was forced to close and was later demolished. In 1981 phase 4 was completed. In 1996 the Corporation ceased to exist and the centre was purchased by a shopping management group; also in this year phase 3 was demolished; then in 2001 phase 2 was demolished. On this spare land the New Antonine centre was built.

[edit] Modern times

The structure was very much a product of its time and many flaws within the design have been exposed. After only a few years, visitors and owners of businesses within the shopping centre noticed that the walkways were acting as wind tunnels and subsequently shops and shoppers stayed away. Other major faults appeared with the structure.

In the 1990s and up until 2001, parts of the Town Centre were demolished. The land on which phase 2 was situated has now been redeveloped with the new Antonine Centre worth £40 million and having 350,000 square feet (33,000 m²) of retail space.

The old building was featured on the Channel 4 show Demolition where it was voted as the worst building in Britain.

The new Antonine Centre opened on Wednesday 6th June 2007 attracting thousands of shoppers for the opening. The Centre is expected to increase spending in the town by 84% (£175 million); the town centre is expecting a rise in sales of almost 166%. The centre was officially opened by Princess Anne in July 2007.

[edit] Future

A new phase is planned to link the new centre to the old with a walkway with several food outlets situated on it; there will also be a new bus station to replace the old one on the dual carriageway directly underneath the Centre.