Thursday, November 11, 2010

The Trafford Centre & Barton Square, Manchester UK

Oooh ... The Trafford Centre has expanded into an Italianesque square! This is Barton Square.




Cute or scarey ... take your pick!



Whats happened since I left the UK ...
The Trafford Centre announced in October 2005 that permission had been granted for further expansion. The additional 19,000 square metres (200,000 sq ft), which cost £70M, is known as Barton Square and opened on 20 March 2008. The name of the square relates to the nearby area of Eccles and to another of Peel's nearby ventures, City Airport Manchester, which was formerly called Barton Aerodrome. Barton Square is located to the west of the main building and is linked to the rest of the centre via a glazed bridge. The architecture is based on an Italian square and includes a large fountain as well as a campanile tower.

The glazed bridge ... and a very large new Marks & Spencers!

The original bits of the Trafford Centre ... and some history from Wikipedia!
Twelve years after the Trafford Centre was first conceptualised by developers the Peel Group, the shopping centre opened in September 1998. Construction took 27 months and cost approximately £600 million (approximately £750M as of 2010), excluding new expansion such as Barton Square and redevelopment of some areas for anchor tenants.
B's friend showed off the new Apple iPhone4 which had just been launched when I was there over summer, at the really nice Apple Store :-)

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