| Location | Inverness, Highland, Scotland |
|---|---|
| Address | East Gate & Millburn Road, Inverness |
| Opening date | 1983 1993 (refurbishment} 2002 (extension) [1] |
| Developer | Sun & Alliance |
| Owner | Grosvenor Shopping Centre Fund [2] |
| No. of stores and services | 60 |
| No. of anchor tenants | 2 |
| Total retail floor area | 2 |
| Parking | 1350 spaces [3] |
| Website | Official site |
Eastgate Shopping Centre is located in Inverness, serving the largest shopping catchment area in Europe.[2] The centre has two main anchor stores, Marks and Spencer and Debenhams. The Grosvenor Shopping Centre Fund are the present owners of the Eastgate.[4]
The Centre is notable for an automaton clock depicting Noah's Ark.[5] Each hour a monkey is seen raising up a tree and chiming a bell in order to tell the hour.
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The Eastgate shopping centre was first opened in the city centre by Sun Alliance in 1983, with Marks and Spencer as the anchor store on brownfield land.[6]
The Eastgate shopping centre underwent a refurbishment plan in 1993. [1]
The first application sent to Highland Council by the centre developers Royal & SunAlliance, dated 10 March 1997, was to warrant a much needed extension to the Eastgate. This plan was originally rejected on the grounds of the controversial re-location of the Category B listed building on 7/9 Falcon Square (the Falconer Building), inadequate access to the railway station and too many car park spaces that would allow for this development to go ahead. They were more interested in supporting plans particularly around The Academy Centre extension which was going to be anchored by Debenhams.
The plans outlined were going to contain two new bridges connecting the existing centre and the new extension. This was going to be built on land (Millburn Road), north of the centre on the former Railway goods yard area. Marks and Spencer were going to expand their current store over their own service yard. A car park would be built for the extension holding 1500 later been forced to scale back to 1300 spaces. BHS anticipated an interest in being an anchor for the new extension, including room for leisure facility and a 8 screen multiplex cinema.[2]
A later application was accepted, although now without a multiplex cinema. Building work started in 2001 and was opened in 2002. This now included one bridge walkway connecting the new phase with the existing shopping centre, complete with an anchor store and a food court. [3]
The Falcon Square extension is called the Falcon Mall. The original site is now officially called Eastgate Mall, with Eastgate Centre referring to the two buildings together.[7]
As part of this refurbishment, Falcon Square has been rebuilt as a plaza on which a new mercat cross has been erected, and which has replaced the Town House end of the High Street as a gathering point for civic events.
There are two car parks on the site, one which is opposite the existing centre and the other adjacent to the extension, close to the main Inverness Railway Station.[3] The car parks are very strict where they are now shut out with normal opening hours.[8]
The Eastgate is a firm shopping destination in the highlands, carrying many of the shops in the city and surrounding areas. Along with the anchor units, there at least 60 units including the very visitable 4front store[9]H&M, Boots, HMV, Waterstones and Argos.[2][10] Gap, which was one of the centre's most affluent shops closed their store in Eastgate in 2008 as part of a national cutback.[11] The site has since been replaced by Peacocks. On a side note, they also have a 'bridge' joining with Supermarket Retailers purpose built Morrisons store, which is often a destination of shoppers in the Eastgate Center.
List of all businesses in the Eastgate centre - Monsoon Accessorize, Argos (retailer), Atrium Cafe Ben & Jerry's, apple store as of september 24th 2011 Birthdays, Boots, Burger Express, Cafe Centro, Cardland, Chisholm Hunter, Claires, Crabtree & Evelyn, Debenhams, Early Learning Centre, East, Ernest Jones (retailer), Evans (clothing retailer), Fat Face, Filling Station, French Connection (clothing), Fuel Juice Bar, Game (retailer), H Samuel, H&M, Hawkin's Bazaar, HMV, Internacionale, Jones Bootmaker, Joy, Julian Graves, KFC, La Senza, Lapis Gold, Laura Ashley, Lorimers, Marks & Spencer, Mountain Warehouse, New Look (clothing retailer), Next (clothing), O'Briens, O2 (United Kingdom), Past Times, Peacocks (retailer), Phase Eight, Pizza Express, Pizza Hut, Quiz, Republic (retailer), River Island, Schuh, SKY, Starbucks Coffee, T-Mobile, The Body Shop, The Good Food Shop, The Officers Club, The Perfume Shop, Thomson Holidays, Thorntons, Timpson (retailer), USC, Vision Express, Vodafone, Waterstones, Zara (clothing), Zoo, 3 Mobile Store
On the first floor of the Falcon Mall, there is a large food court, with seating for over 100 people. This food court hosts many big names, such as KFC, Pizza Hut and Burger Express.