Southampton City Centre is the commercial and organisational centre of the City of Southampton, and the transport hub of the city. Because Southampton is on the South Coast of England, the city centre is not at the geometric centre of the city, but at the southern extremity.

The traditional heart of the city is the High Street, which runs from the Town Quay to the Bargate, which was once the northern gateway to the walled city. As the city grew, this primary commercial area spread to the north of the Bargate, into Above Bar Street. Subsequent reclamation of land from Southampton Water to the west of the High Street meant further expansion in that direction, forming an area now known as West Quay and dominated by the modern WestQuay shopping centre. When it opened, WestQuay was the largest city-centre shopping centre in Europe,^[1] with around 100 shops.

Culture

There are several museums in the city centre, especially around the "Old Town" area. The museums include the Tudor House Museum, Merchant?s House Museum and the Maritime Museum.^[2]

Shopping

The main shopping district of the city is centred around Above Bar Street (part of which is pedestrianised), London Road, High Street and East Street.

WestQuay Mall, Southampton's newest and largest shopping centre

There are several indoor shopping centres in the area, namely West Quay, The Mall Marlands (formerly named Marlands Shopping Centre), Bargate and EaSTreet. As an attempt to ensure the whole city centre is not dominated by chain stores, the city council have designated East Street a "speciality shopping" district. West Quay Retail Park, not to be confused with the similarly named shopping centre, is also located in the city centre. The Mall Marlands was opened on 5 September 1991. It currently has a branch of Matalan as its flagship store, and in 2005-2006 the centre was revamped By adding an improved entrance at Above Bar Street and a new information desk. The shopping centre formerly featured a series of fountains but these had to be put out of service due to health and safety reasons in late 2005.

Swedish furniture retailer IKEA is to open a new store beside West Quay Road, between the WestQuay multistorey car park and West Quay Retail Park.

East Street Shopping Centre

East Street shopping centre's central atrium

East Street Shopping Centre, branded EaSTreet, is Southampton's earliest indoor shopping centre. The centre was built at the eastern end of East Street and blocked off the street itself as it was built over the top of it.

The centre was constructed in the 1970s and due to its location ? outside the main city centre shopping district ? it has never been commercially successful. As well as the shopping centre, the development includes a large office tower, rooftop car park and the Royal Oak pub. The centre was originally anchored by Comet Electrical and Courts furniture store, however the demise of this chain in the late 1980s/early 90s left mainly independent shops and empty units in the centre. A Tandy electronics store (Later T2 Retail) was part of the centre until the early 21st century but again, this store chain no longer exists and the unit is now empty. One of the longest established shops in the centre is Teville's music shop which is one of the only musical instrument shops in the city (after the brief arrival and swift demise of nearby SoundControl. The other music shop is Beckett's on Commercial Road, near Central Station).

The future of the centre is uncertain; there have been several propositions for redevelopment, one including changing it into a nightclub, but none have come to fruition.

Bargate Shopping Centre

The Bargate Centre The Bargate Shopping Centre, named after Southampton's prominent Bargate landmark, was opened in 1989.^[3] The centre focuses on being a collection of specialist outlets rather than a mainstream shopping centre, and boasts a number of technology-related stores, a nail salon, a photographic studio and a Sega amusement centre.^[4]

The Mall Southampton

The Mall Southampton, formerly known as the Marlands Shopping Centre or The Mall Marlands, was opened on 5 September 1991. At the time, the Marlands Shopping Centre was the largest shopping centre in Southampton and the first significant shopping centre in the city (East Street Shopping Centre being well out of the way of the main shopping district hence never being very successful and the Bargate Centre being much smaller), however it is now dwarfed by WestQuay, which opened in 2000.

The Marlands Shopping Centre was constructed to an extremely PostModern design, which was described at the time of opening by one critic as looking like "something made of Lego". The Centre was built on the site of Southampton's bus station (the city is now without such a facility), a popular rose garden and some terraced housing. Some of the facades of the houses were retained and form an interesting part of the centre's atrium.

The centre is laid out across two levels, with escalators connecting them at the North West entrance and escalators and glass lifts connecting them in the atrium, at the South of the centre. Unlike most of its contemporaries, the Marlands Shopping Centre does not contain a car park of any kind - the designated car park for the centre is accessed by going through Southampton's unusual ASDA supermarket which is on a slope - you go in on the ground floor and come out on the tenth floor - and across a bridge.

West Quay Retail Park

The West Quay Retail Park is an out-of-town style retail park, but located within the city centre. It includes a number of large warehouse-style stores, currently occupied by Toys "R" Us, Mothercare, Argos, Tesco and Staples among others. The retail park also has a small food section, occupied by McDonald's and T.G.I. Friday's IKEA, and is also the location of Southampton's geothermal power plant.

West Quay Shopping Centre

Branded WestQuay, this shopping centre has an area of 800,000 square feet (70,000 m2) of retail space (74,000 mē) and contains around a hundred shops, including major retailers such as, John Lewis, Marks and Spencer, Zara, Schuh, Waterstone's, Benetton Bank, Apple, and many more top brand names.

It is situated in the centre of the city, close to the docks, with entrances on the main High Street (Above Bar Street), on Portland Terrace, through Waterstone's and through John Lewis. There is also a built in multi storey car park with an entrance into the centre along with a 3 tier car park beneath. Building work began in 1997 as the former Daily Echo building, two large office blocks (Arundel Towers) and Pirelli Cable Works were demolished to make way for the centre. The centre was opened on 28 September 2000.

Transport

Platforms at Southampton Central station

Southampton Central railway station is located in the north west of the city centre area, with the old Southampton Terminus in the south east. There is also a new coach station on the West Quay retail park, a short walk from the railway station. Ferry services operate along Southampton Water to Hythe and Cowes.

The West Quay bus stops are in view. The Bargate stops are right of the picture.

There are two main termini for bus services. As the biggest operator, First uses stops around Pound Tree Road, and occupies a lot of space there. This leaves the other terminal of West Quay available for other operators. Uni-link passes West Quay in both directions (except the U2 which terminates at the Civic Centre), and Wilts & Dorset drop passengers off there, terminating at a series of bus stands along the road. Once back in service, buses turn round and pick up passengers at West Quay again. Certain Bluestar services also do this, while others stop at Bargate and some loop round West Quay, stopping between Bargate and Pound tree Road. Brijan Tours services also stop at Bargate.

Waterfront

Part of the waterfront. The West Quay shopping centre can be seen on the left, with the spires of St Mary's and St Michael's churches. Spectators line the shores of Mayflower Park.

References

---

Source: Wikipedia | The above article is available under the GNU FDL. | Edit this article