Liverpool One

Thursday, May 29th, 2008

I’ve been taking a few days off work and needed to go in to Liverpool for a few odds and ends today. I’d forgotten it was Liverpool One’s / The Paradise Projects opening today. Had a quick wander round and wished I’d been quicker because I’d worn my new shoes to break them in a bit and broke my foot in a little as well. The new John Lewis store is a huge improvement on the old store. Light and spacious with a lot more variety of stock than the old shop and a smarter arrangment of departments. Kitchen stuff and table stuff is now all together rather than two floors apart.

I nipped into Debenhams which is a similar design to the John Lewis building. Partly because there was less of interest to me and partly because there was a fashion show causing hold ups around the elevators I wasn’t quite as impressed.

I walked through some of the shopping arcades and at the moment I really like the open style with covered walk ways and a lot of glass, stone and polished steel. I hope the detailing on the architecture has been done right so that rain water doesn’t stain parts of it and turn it into a modern take on a 1950s or 1960s shopping centre.

My other concern is that a lot of the shops are shops from the existing city’s shopping area relocated into the new development. Hopefully the owner’s of the now empty property will be smart and ask for realistic rents to attract new tenants rather than sitting on empty units.

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