Pictured above: The Mander Centre, Wolverhampton
The retail team at Cushman & Wakefield in Birmingham has
pulled off a major coup after being appointed joint letting agent
for one of the Midlands biggest shopping centres.
The company has been engaged to help find new tenants for
Wolverhampton's Mander Centre.
Cushman & Wakefield has been instructed by the new owner of
the shopping centre, Delancey, and will work with joint agent Green
and Partners, a niche London practice.
Rob Alston, who heads Cushman & Wakefield's retail team in
the Midlands, said that the Mander Centre was poised for a new
lease of life, due to anticipated refurbishment and improvements by
Delancey, but also because of the abandonment of a nearby rival
scheme.
The latter is Summer Row, a scheme once touted as being likely
to attract the most sought after retailers in Wolverhampton to its
environs, at the expense of the Mander Centre and another nearby
development, the Wulfrun Centre.
However, Summer Row appears to have fallen victim to the UK's
economic austerity, and Mr Alston said he believed it was now
unlikely to see the light of day.
"It's not going to happen," he said. "The owners of the existing
shopping centres now have a great opportunity to look at creating
the scheme that Summer Row was going to be."
He added that London based Delancey had plans in the pipeline to
refurbish and reconfigure the Mander Centre, in order to attract
new high quality retailers.
In its heyday, the 1960s built scheme was the biggest and best
in Wolverhampton, and although now in need of some refurbishment,
it can still count a number of high profile retailers among its
tenants, including Tesco, TJ Hughes, New Look, WH Smith and
Boots.
Mr Alston added: "This is a good example of the Midlands retail
team of Cushman & Wakefield winning a quite prestigious
instruction - we are a regional office, but part of a national
team, and this will be the biggest shopping centre that we have
been asked to handle so far in the Midlands."