Wednesday 24 Jul 2013
Network Rail announces major refurbishment of Victoria Place shopping centre
- Region & Route:
- National
Network Rail today announced a £15m refurbishment and expansion of the 83,000 sq ft Victoria Place shopping centre at Victoria station.
The shopping centre lies directly above Victoria station – London’s second busiest station used by more than 80m people a year – and is spread across three levels. The scheme provides improved access including the redesign of the entrances and extensive reconfiguration of the existing space.
Additionally the retail area will have a new visual identity to complement the new contemporary retail environment. Major brands such as Next, Boots, Sainsbury and McDonalds are remaining and announcements on new tenants will be made shortly.
The scheme will also add an additional 10,000sq ft of new space to the shopping centre, taking the total amount up to 93,000 sq ft of retail across 40 units.
Jonathan Crick, Network Rail’s commercial director of retail, said: “The refurbishment of Victoria Place shopping centre is great news for passengers, our retail partners and people who live and work in the area. Following the success of our recent schemes at King’s Cross and Waterloo, the work at Victoria Place is part of our vision to create destination stations where travellers, shoppers and families can enjoy unique retail experiences in exciting contemporary surroundings.”
“Retail in stations continues to go from strength to strength. Our sales results consistently show growth levels well above the high street and our retailers benefit from the high footfall that create some of the most lucrative trading environments available in the marketplace today. We have the essential locations to help brands perform to their full potential.”
All profit from Network Rail’s retail activity is re-invested in the railway, limiting the cost to taxpayers and passengers.
Notes to editors
Spence has been awarded the contract to carry out the refurbishment. Work will start this month with completion scheduled for early spring 2014.
Network Rail is the not-for-dividend owner and operator of Britain's railway infrastructure, which includes the tracks, signals, tunnels, bridges, viaducts, level crossings and stations - the largest of which we also manage We aim to provide a safe, reliable and efficient rail infrastructure for freight and passenger trains to use Our website: www.networkrail.co.uk
It is one of the largest land and property owners in the country and will generate over £1bn in the next five years from commercial activities for re-investment in our rail estate. This would be enough to transform Birmingham New Street or King’s Cross stations, or put in place 5,000km of new railway.
It has over 590,000 sq ft retail space at 17 of the largest stations across the country – that’s more retail space than Bluewater – showcasing many leading high-street brands.
It works in partnership on existing development projects, including multi-million pound commercial schemes above our stations at London Bridge (Shard) and Cannon Street and our first multi-site joint venture, Solum Regeneration.
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We own, operate and develop Britain's railway infrastructure; that's 20,000 miles of track, 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts and the thousands of signals, level crossings and stations. We run 20 of the UK's largest stations while all the others, over 2,500, are run by the country's train operating companies.
Usually, there are almost five million journeys made in the UK and over 600 freight trains run on the network. People depend on Britain's railway for their daily commute, to visit friends and loved ones and to get them home safe every day. Our role is to deliver a safe and reliable railway, so we carefully manage and deliver thousands of projects every year that form part of the multi-billion pound Railway Upgrade Plan, to grow and expand the nation's railway network to respond to the tremendous growth and demand the railway has experienced - a doubling of passenger journeys over the past 20 years.
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