Swindon & Wiltshire News
Galleries Shopping Centre redevelopment plans submitted
Plans to demolish the Galleries Shopping Centre in Bristol city centre and replace it with a mixed-use development of homes, offices, shops, and restaurants have been submitted.
The site’s owner LaSalle Investment Management wants to knock down the three-storey mall, which opened in 1991.
The outline planning application, submitted by LaSalle’s development partner Deeley Freed, proposes 450 homes – 20 per cent of which would be designated affordable – employment space of around 430,000 sq ft, a 250-room hotel, and accommodation for up to 750 students.
The proposal also includes 107,000 sq ft of ground floor space for retail, leisure, food and beverage, health, and community uses.
Max Freed, from Bristol-based Deeley Freed, said the proposals represented a “once in a generation chance to re-invent, revitalise and modernise such a large part of the city centre.”
“Our vision involves completely transforming this inward-looking, 1980s shopping centre, making the site more diverse, safe and green,” he said.
“The development opens up the city centre to Castle Park, with a real focus on addressing Bristol’s priorities around housing, health and wellbeing, climate, ecology, tourism and the economy.”
The shopping centre was heralded as the future of retail when it opened in 1991 on a site formerly occupied by the Co-op’s 1960s department store Fairfax House.
But its fortunes were knocked first by the opening of The Mall at Cribbs Causeway in 1998 and then by the development of the adjoining Cabot Circus, which attracted many of the big brands out of the shopping centre.
In 2011 the centre was sold by Capital & Regional and Aviva Investors to HSBC European Active Real Estate Trust for £50 million. By 2019, when it was sold by InfraRed Capital to LaSalle Investment Management, it was valued at just £32 million.
All images courtesy of Deeley Freed
Latest: Bristol’s ageing Galleries shopping centre to be demolished
