Arndale Centre


Arndale Centres were the first "American style" malls to be built in the United Kingdom. In total, Arndale Property Trust built 23 Arndale Centres in the United Kingdom, and three in Australia. The first opened in Jarrow, County Durham, in 1961, as a pedestrianised shopping area.

History

In 1950, Arnold Hagenbach, a baker with a talent for property investment, and Sam Chippendale, an estate agent from Otley, set up a company called the Arndale Property Trust, the name being a portmanteau of "Arnold" and "Chippendale".
Prior to developing a string of large shopping centres, Arndale initially started to build new stretches of high streets as canopied shopping parades in a variety of small towns across the North of England as well as suburban centres. These early developments introduced large format shop units to post-war town centres in need of regeneration that suited the growth of growing businesses such as Woolworths and Marks and Spencer. Developments were often in conjunction with local councils to deliver new infrastructure such as roads or markets.
The trust purchased Bradford's Victorian Swan Arcade in 1954, with the intention of demolishing it and developing a new shopping centre, but it took eight years before leases expired and building work could commence, so in the meantime it developed a site in Jarrow, County Durham, which became the first Arndale Centre when it opened in 1961. Its trademark Viking statue, built by the Trust, was unveiled on 17 February 1962.
Arndale's first office was in Wakefield, West Yorkshire and moved to offices in Bradford in 1964 in the then-new Arndale House
When the Wandsworth Arndale opened in 1971, it was the largest indoor shopping space in Europe.
The largest Arndale Centre built was Manchester Arndale. It was redeveloped from 1996, after being badly damaged in an 1996 [Manchester City Centre bombing|IRA bombing], and the centre has been owned by Prudential since December 1998.

Criticism

Arndale Centres attracted criticism on aesthetic grounds as they replaced old buildings – often of the Victorian period – with modern concrete constructions, often in a brutalist style.
The value of the Wandsworth Arndale was maximised by the high rise tower blocks built on top of the mall, which helped it to become, according to some commentators, "one of London’s great architectural disasters".

List of Arndale Centres

United Kingdom