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About Trafford Centre
A short drive outside Manchester, The Trafford Centre is the largest shopping center in the United Kingdom, offering hours or even days of shopping, dining, and entertainment. There are more than 280 stores, so you are sure to find what you are looking for. The architecture is a spectacle as well, with huge columns, massive domes, and elegant wrought iron and marble. If you grow tired of shopping and browsing, try the eighteen-lane bowling alley, take in a movie at the twenty-screen cinema, or try turbo bumper cars.
The planning process for The Trafford Centre was one of the longest and most expensive in British history. Ultimately the matter was decided by the House of Lords.
The Trafford Centre is a major sponsor of Salford City Reds rugby league club. Shortly after its opening, the centre provided the setting for Shopping City, a BBC2 daytime programme hosted by Lowri Turner and also provides the "catwalk" ending of the programme, How to Look Good Naked.
The Trafford Centre has 118,766 square metres (1.2m square feet) of retail space and attracts 30 million visits annually (2005 figures). It is made up of 4 main areas: Peel Avenue, Regent Crescent, The Dome, and The Orient. The centre is owned by Peel Holdings. It was designed so that visitors enter on both of the two main shopping floors in equal numbers. This helps avoid the problem suffered by other centres, such as the MetroCentre, where visitors do not go to upper floors meaning that many big retailers avoid upper floor units.
Portraits running around the top of the walls of the mall depict members of the Whittaker family, founders of owners Peel Holdings. A Mercedes car belonging to the mother of Peel Holdings' chairman, John Whittaker, is on display on the first floor mall outside F. Hinds.
The building's public lighting is under state-of-the-art computer control, adapts to the changing environment, and can be controlled from one central location. All vehicles entering The Trafford Centre have their number plate details recorded via automatic number plate recognition.
Peel Avenue is home to the high street shops such as an Apple Store, H&M, and Boots. It is also home to two department stores, the new John Lewis which opened in 2005 at the end of Peel Avenue, and the newly refurbished four-storey Marks & Spencer, (see below). The space now occupied by John Lewis was previously a market area known as the Festival Village.
The latest development to be completed is the new four-storey Marks and Spencer. This now features an outside entrance to the foodhall, which will mean that customers doing their food shopping at Marks and Spencer can take their bags straight out to the car park, rather than walking through the mall.
The Dome is in the middle of the centre and is home to more upmarket stores such as the first Selfridges outside of London.
Regent Crescent is home to many high end designer stores, including Karen Millen, Jane Norman, Gap and Mexx. It also houses the bookshop Waterstones and to two department stores, BHS and Debenhams.
The Trafford Centre announced in October 2005, that permission had been granted for further expansion. The 200,000 sq feet extension, which will cost £70m, is to be known as 'Barton Square'. It will be located to the west of the main building and will be linked over a through road by an extensive glazed bridge. The new scheme will target the high-quality homewares market with a variety of units offering furniture, kitchens, bathrooms, home furnishings and other goods that are currently not available at The Trafford Centre. Retailers confirmed so far are Next Home, M&S Home and Dwell. A further 630 free parking spaces will also be provided. Construction is well underway on this development, which is expected to open in Spring 2008. Further adjacent vacant ground exists for future expansion of Barton Square.
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