NOTTINGHAM | Westfield Broadmarsh - Major Shopping Centre | £700m | 1.4m sq ft | App

[Racing Green]

Removing Collin Street and opening up Lister Gate to Carrington Street is the next best option to a full blown open space in this area. Any architect worth their pay will design a future Broadmarsh development to make use of the views to the Castle as well as ideally Lace Market and the Council House. The topography here lends itself well to an attractive urban fabric, right now its just hidden underneath the monstrosities of the existing centre and associated car parks. There is such potential here for a fantastic city centre environment and Nottingham will benefit for generations if the council and eventual developer gets it right.

[sherwood199]

Nottingham City Council is expected to put forward its own plans to buy the Arndale car park, at the southern end of Maid Marian Way, and demolish it, allowing the road to continue to Canal Street and Wilford Street.


http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/Br...#axzz2SEfdFCH8

[local_weasel]

The more you think about it, the clearer it becomes how important it is NOT to have a brand new uber-mall that Westfield originally proposed.

A city park with all the trimmings would be the dream. The caves opened up as a proper attraction, the views of the castle, restaurants and limited shops that didn't attract the likes of M&S and Debenhams to abandon their current homes.

There's a park running right through the centre of Bournemouth, with surrounding shops and bars which is a pleasant thoroughfare and a place to sit and breathe during a break from the office. Especially with the college that's proposed for beside the tram tracks, this would be simply game changing for Nottingham.

If traditional high street retail is on the wane, it's not floorspace we need, it's a reason to actually come to Nottingham.

[ben77]

Racing & Weasel, think you are both spot on. The lack of movement on this scheme is positive in many ways because hopefully it will leave the door open for a well thought out urban development of the Broadmarsh area rather than a massive retail led scheme.. This could be so huge for the future of Nottingham unfortunately i can't see Intu giving up the site which is what i think will be needed for something like this to be a success.

[Racing Green]

We can see it but the City Council are powerless and its doubtful they'd do it anyway. I have always maintained that the potential for the site is quite spectacular, something other medium sized cities in the UK couldn't offer.

Imagine it, a park with the tram and college to the east, Lace Market church and caves to the northeast, a view up Lister Gate to the Council House to the north, Nottingham Castle high up to the northwest, Castle Boulevard to the west and Carrington Street/train station to the north.

Broadmarsh Park would without doubt be one of the UK's most distinct urban spaces outside of London. Nottingham would be transformed. It'd have two public spaces, a park and a square, the train station at one end and the shopping centre (Vic) at the other, with everything including the tram inbetween.

[deshnoodlé]

Originally Posted by local_weasel

If traditional high street retail is on the wane, it's not floorspace we need, it's a reason to actually come to Nottingham.

this. a many million times over.

it's fantasy stuff, of course, unless someone is prepared to pump an epic sum of money into a significant reduction in the retail floorspace of nottingham.

flatten the whole rotten lot of it. imagine if it was all open space now, and someone came along and suggested putting a f*****g shopping centre on it!

am i right in thinking that an objection to allowing the vic centre to become dominant is that it will damage the balance that comes from having two 'centres' and then everything in between? because haven't we now proven that this is nothing to worry about? the broadmarsh hasn't added anything positive to that end of town for a long time... if you had a nice park there, together with the enhanced (but smaller) retail offer that would inevitably follow (as the trendy arm extends down from high pavement) then it would be very strong, and there'd be no fear from letting intu make the vic as big as they want (which would be awful, obviously, but a net win for the city).

they didn't pay much for the broadmarsh, did they? i wonder if they'd hand the keys to the city in return for being able to do what they want up t'road?

or could we have an ssc whip-round and make an offer?

[Racing Green]

Originally Posted by deshnoodlé

they didn't pay much for the broadmarsh, did they? i wonder if they'd hand the keys to the city in return for being able to do what they want up t'road?

Absolute best case scenario would be this and the City Council realizing the monumental transformation effect a park in this place would have on Nottingham city centre.

[Skipping_Pig]

Nice as it would be, it's never ever going to happen. It would cost the council a huge amount just to acquire the site, let alone have it turned into a park. Even then it wouldn't make them any money, especially considering the maintenance costs. And revenue generation is quite high up on the list of local authority priorities...

[Recuerdo]

I agree that there should be more parkland in Nottingham, and with potential views over the castle the Broadmarsh site would be the ideal location.

That said, I think that we still need to keep an anchor development - maybe not of the size of the previously proposed developments - in the area to maintain the flow of traffic between Broadmarsh and the Vic centre. Allowing Intu to develop Broadmarsh as an 'entertainment venue' and Vic Centre purely for retail would kill businesses in between the two during the day.

[ben77]

Opening up the site allowing the topography and views to reveal themselves would be a hugely important development for Nottingham and probably create one of the best urban settings in the country. There is no doubt that the high street is changing and mega malls are probably going to be a thing of the past and we are now seeing exactly why they are so bad for the future of a city in Nottingham. Huge monolithic sites own by 1 company developed as single entities can't be a healthy long term solution for dynamic environments. If Intu didn't own this site i'd be really happy that it hadn't had been recently developed and would hope that Nottingham would take this opportunity to be really forward thinking and see the potential with this space. There is a chance that the Viccy centre can be used as a bargaining chip but it is very worrying having what is essentially the "Aldi" of shopping centre companies owning half of Nottingham city centre..Christ Nottingham could be so good without these 2 developements..

[local_weasel]

Seems to be a lot of agreement on this.

Not that any of us have even an ounce of influence, but I'd certainly reconsider my objection to the dreadful VC extension if Intu did agree to wash their hands of the Broadmarsh and we bulldozed the whole thing in favour of a park.

Given that they never wanted it in the first place, there would surely be some appeal in this plan to Intu? Restaurants/shops around the outside. A new entrance to the Caves. A new, relaxed nighttime destination.



We can but dream.

[sherwood199]

Even if they don't demolish Broadmarsh a small version of that park would look amazing as a replacement for Collin Street. Add an active frontage to Broadmarsh over looking the park and then we might actually get something nice there...

[ranny fash]

^

I'm glad you lot have been talking sense finally!

I am also guilty of having these type of dreams for the Broadmarsh area (see my many posts on the subject). The council certianly don't have the money to do this right now so there's sticking point number 1. Number 2 would be site ownership...something I know very little about lol.

A park to change the urban fabric for the better would be a game changer. You'd have to make sure traffic flow is managed well and people are drawn to walking between different areas of town.

I doubt it's remotely feasible for the whole area to be park, partly for financial reasons, partly for traffic flow reasons. But some recreated streets and thoroughfares with places for people to work, live, and yes, shop, might go some way to easing all that. Except that would still cost a silly amount. But the long term benefits could be enormous both financially and socially.

Back to reality....this isn't gonna happen right now. But it really should be in the minds of planners, and the council...and indeed property owners on the site and around the site. They wouldn't be doing their jobs if it wasn't.