Southside Wandsworth
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Southside Wandsworth is a shopping centre in Wandsworth, London, England.[1]
It opened in 1971 as an Arndale Centre development, and was at the time the largest shopping centre in Europe. It occupies much of the centre of Wandsworth, with a housing development and extensive car parking on the roof, and the River Wandle running in a tunnel underneath.
The shopping centre steadily drifted downmarket in the decades after its construction, until work began to extensively refurbish and extend it in 2000. This included the construction of a new multistorey car park, the addition of a 14 screen Cineworld cinema, and improvements to the housing development above the centre. The centre was renamed Southside in 2004.
The shopping centre is anchored by a Waitrose supermarket. Clothing retailers include Primark, Uniqlo, River Island, Barratts, Next, River Island, H&M, JD Sports and (from April) Gap. The centre also includes GAME, HMV, Boots and Books Etc. With 30 or so other stores, as well as a food court and a Virgin Active gym, Southside is one of London's largest shopping centres in terms of its ground floor square footage, and currently attracts over 7 million visitors a year.
Now owned by Metro Shopping Fund (a partnership between Land Securities and Delaney), Southside continues to be redeveloped with the addition of a large residential tower at the southern end of the complex and reconstruction of the centre's rather dilapidated frontage along Garratt Lane to include both retail and office accommodation. The centre is acquiring an increasingly upmarket mix of shops.
