Meadowhall (shopping centre)

Meadowhall

Meadowhall interior

The shopping centre was built by Bovis[2] on the site previously occupied by Hadfields' East Hecla steelworks, and before that by the 19th-century Meadow Hall Iron Works, owned by John Crowley and Co.

The centre was opened on 4 September 1990. With a floor area of 139,355 m² (1,500,005 sq ft), it is the eleventh-largest (second-largest when first opened) shopping centre in the UK. It is similar in concept to the Merry Hill Shopping Centre at Brierley Hill in the West Midlands, which was completed just before Meadowhall.[3]

With over 280 stores, Meadowhall has been widely blamed for the closure of shops in Sheffield City Centre and in Rotherham.[4] Meadowhall is owned by British Land, a property developer. The centre attracted 19.8 million visitors in its first year of opening, and now attracts about 30 million visitors a year.[4]

Scenes from the music video of the Sheffield-based duo Moloko's first single "Fun For Me" were shot in the Oasis area of the shopping centre.[5]

One of Meadowhall's largest stores of the past, Sainsbury's (formerly located on Market Street), closed in July 2005 and was replaced by new Next and Primark stores in the summer of 2007. The large Sainsbury's store relocated to Crystal Peaks. There was a Namco Station arcade which closed in September 2007 after more than 15 years at the shopping centre. December 2005 saw Meadowhall become home to the fifth Apple Store in the UK, and in late 2007 it gained the third Puma Store in the UK, after London and Glasgow. The centre was also home to the only McCafé in Yorkshire,[6] which has been replaced with a franchise called "Love Coffee". The centre's Burger King (formerly located on Market Street) was replaced by a small franchise called "Burger Knight" when it re-opened after the 2007 floods. The franchise later closed in May 2008.

In October 2012, Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) announced that the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global had bought 50 percent of the UK shopping centre Meadowhall for £348 million, or approximately 3.2 billion Norwegian kroner.[7]

In 2014, the mall "Park Lane" was refurbished in the style of a "boutique arcade". The "Park Lane" area is now seen as the most upmarket area of Meadowhall, with stores such as Pretty Green, House of Fraser, Hugo Boss, White Stuff, Yo! Sushi and Debenhams.

In May 2012, British Land announced that planning permission had been sought to provide a 52,000 sq ft (4,800 m²) retail extension to Meadowhall on adjacent land, the plans however were not approved.[11] In December 2014, a new Next home store and a Costa Coffee drive-thru was opened on the land next to Meadowhall where the extension was to be built. The Next home store came after IKEA had originally had plans to build a store close to Meadowhall however Next won the bid to build on the land instead. A new IKEA store however began being built on land next to Meadowhall retail park in August 2016. The store opened on 28 September 2017.

In October 2016, it was announced plans had been put forward for a £300 million leisure extension to be built with a new cinema to replace the Vue in the Oasis, a bowling arcade, trampoline park, new restaurants, shops and a garden terrace along with a new multi-storey car park to replace the old one the extension would be built upon. In June 2017, the plan was scaled down by reducing the size of the new cinema and removing a food store. Sheffield city council gave planning permission to the development in September 2017. The extension was scheduled to be completed by 2021/2022, however in November 2018 construction had not yet began and it was announced that the plans for the extension were to be revised with a new plan hoped to be drawn up in the second quarter of 2019.[12] In May 2020 British Land said the extension was unlikely to go ahead due to the uncertain times caused by the coronavirus pandemic.[13] New plans for the extension were unveiled in July of the same year and include a temporary leisure park on the site of the M1 distribution centre; the new cinema was also taken out of the new plans however the current Vue cinema would be refurbished.

Meadowhall was inundated by the River Don during the June 2007 floods, with water peaking at 1.8 metres (6 ft). The worst affected areas were between Market Street and The Arcade. Meadowhall itself reopened six days later, and trading recommenced. However, most shops on the ground floor were closed for between two and three months so that they could be refitted. Meadowhall has since installed flood gates, to prevent this from happening in the future.

Meadowhall was also affected by the November 2019 floods on Sunday 17 November, the same night as the Christmas Light Switch-on. Although the event was cancelled, many people had already began to travel for the performances. Once people had arrived public transport were already cancelled, affecting people all over South Yorkshire. With conditions growing worse across the area, many shops and businesses began to close, with some people being left stranded in the Meadowhall premises until the morning.

The main Meadowhall structure is divided into three sections, each with a distinct identity.

The Oasis food court before it was refurbished

The Oasis Dining Quarter is Meadowhall's food court which has food outlets and seating on both floors. The ground floor contains mostly fast food outlets including McDonald's, KFC, Subway, Pizza Hut, Five Guys and Barburrito but includes restaurants Nando's, Harvester and a Wetherspoons. The upper floor consists mostly of restaurants including Tapas Revolution, Frankie & Benny's, Coal Grill And Bar, PizzaExpress, Wagamama, Handmade Burger Co, Zizzi and T.G.I. Fridays. In July 2011 following the opening of T.G.I. Fridays, the food court underwent a £7 million redevelopment which saw it re-branded from 'Oasis Food Court', to 'Oasis Dining Quarter'.[15] Restaurants such as Las Iguanas, ChaoBaby and Giraffe were added as part of the redevelopment.[16]

Meadowhall has a public transport interchange, Meadowhall Interchange, making it the only shopping centre in the UK that combines a bus, rail and tram interchange as well as making the centre accessible to both the local region and the rest of the country.

Meadowhall Interchange rail platforms

The centre has won awards, including two awards for innovative events at the ICSC maxi awards 2006, held in Chicago[18] and two awards for its Retail Bonding Programme (in best Retail Partnership category) and also for its commercialisation, (adding value to the customer shopping experience) at the BCSC Purple Apple Awards in London.[19]

The centre recycles 97% of waste from retailers and customers, with the remaining three percent going to incineration with energy recovery; no waste goes to landfill.

Meadowhall was the first UK shopping centre to develop an on-site recycling facility. The Resource Recovery Centre, which opened in 2006, operates a conveyor belt system to separate out types of waste, from paper to plastic, cardboard to cans.

Meadowhall began to harvest rainwater in 2006. Four water storage tanks collect rainwater and condensation from air conditioning. This is then used throughout the Shopping Centre for cleaning, flushing toilets and watering the external landscaped areas. The tanks are nearly 7 metres high and hold some 6,600 imperial gallons (30,000 l) of water each.

In 2008 Meadowhall installed a bore hole. This is a narrow shaft drilled into the ground that collects water from beneath the earth. Water from the bore hole is collected into a master tank. The storage tanks are connected onto a "network", which will ensure 90-95% of all water used by customers and retailers for flushing toilets is derived from rainwater harvesting or bore hole water.

In 2018 Meadowhall was the site of a month-long police trial of facial recognition software by South Yorkshire Police, without the public's knowledge. In August 2019 a spokeswoman for British Land, Meadowhall's owner, said, "Over a year ago we conducted a short trial at Meadowhall, in conjunction with the police, and all data was deleted immediately after the trial". Big Brother Watch's chief executive Silkie Carlo was reported by the BBC as saying, "There is an epidemic of facial recognition in the UK. The collusion between police and private companies in building these surveillance nets around popular spaces is deeply disturbing".[20]

• Meadowhall website
• Meadowhall Radio
• Meadowhall retail database