Southside Wandsworth - Renovation and Redevelopment

Renovation and Redevelopment

Southside is now owned by Metro Shopping Fund (a partnership between Land Securities and Delancey, which owns several other London shopping centres, including the nearby ShopStop at Clapham Junction). The centre continues to be progressively redeveloped.

In February 2010, work started to redevelop the northern end of the centre, to extend the centre to 700,000 square feet (65,000 m2), creating larger retail units and an enhanced street frontage, and linking with a major retail and residential development that is scheduled to take place on an adjacent site following the departure of the Ram Brewery from Wandsworth town centre. To prepare for this development, most of the existing shops in Arndale Walk and the northern section of the centre, including a branch of the Iceland supermarket, were closed in January 2008. The smaller units were then amalgamated to provide two larger anchor stores (covering 20,000 square feet (1,900 m2) and 12,000 square feet (1,100 m2), let to TK Maxx and New Look respectively).

The current phase of the redevelopment involves the demolition and replacement of the centre's rather dilapidated eastern frontage along Garratt Lane to create 20,000 feet (6,100 m) of new shopfronts, partly aimed at strengthening the link between the centre and the adjacent Sainsbury's supermarket. Units have been pre-let to Wagamama and Cattle Grid. This will be followed by the demolition of the Arndale Walk part of the centre, to create a 67,845 square feet (6,303.0 m2) department store unit. A provisional agreement was made for the unit to be let to Marks & Spencer., however following a slowing of Marks & Spencer's store opening plans, it was announced in October 2012 that the unit was let to Debenhams.

Demolition of the Garratt Lane frontage, apart from Arndale Walk, was completed in 2009, which was followed by a two-year pause in the development. Relocation of the Wandsworth branch of Jobcentre Plus(which occupied a four-storey office building on the roof of Arndale Walk, that needed to be demolished as part of the second stage of the redevelopment) proved to be particularly controversial, with few alternative locations available, and significant opposition to the possibility of it being moved to a residential area in Southfields.