Westfield Derby

Intu Derby

Location	West Mall, Derby, DE1 2PL, UK
Opening date	1975 (extension opened 2007)
Management	Intu Properties
Owner	Intu Properties
No. of stores and services	199
No. of anchor tenants	6
Total retail floor area	106,130 m² (1,142,383 ft²)
No. of floors	3
Parking	3647
Website	www.intu.co.uk/derby/

Intu Derby, formerly "The Eagle Centre", then Westfield Derby, is a large indoor shopping centre in the centre of Derby, owned by Intu Properties. Intu bought the centre on 20 March 2014 from the Westfield Group.

Overview

Intu Derby contains around 200 shops, a supermarket, a cinema and many eateries. The largest stores are Next, Marks & Spencer, Debenhams and Sainsbury's. There is also a cinema, named the Showcase Cinema de Lux, in the centre. It has three car parks and is a few minutes' walk away from both Derby's bus and railway stations.

The UK's largest indoor market, the Eagle Market, adjoins the centre. The market and Derby Theatre (which is accessed through the market) were considered to be part of the centre until 2007, when the centre was known as The Eagle Centre. When the centre was expanded and renamed (see below), the market — which is owned by Westfield and Hermes, but operated by Derby City Council — did not take on the Westfield name; instead it slightly changed its name from the Eagle Centre Market to simply the Eagle Market and introduced its own branding (separate from both the former Eagle Centre's and Westfield's), making itself distinct from the shopping centre for the first time.

A much smaller indoor shopping precinct, St Peter's Way, is also physically connected to Intu Derby, with customers able to walk seamlessly between the two.

On 3 December 2010 a fire, which started in the car park, caused thousands of shoppers to be evacuated from the building.

History

The centre opened as The Eagle Centre on 20 November 1975 at a cost of £7,000,000. Several streets of terraced housing built in the early 1820s were demolished to make way for the new centre, including a street called Eagle Street, hence the name of the new development.

The centre's market was rebuilt in 1990 and the entire centre was refurbished in 1999.

A £340m extension to the Eagle Centre was opened on 9 October 2007 by TV celebrity Tess Daly. The extension sits on the site of the former Castlefields Main Centre, a dilapidated outdoor shopping centre already owned by Westfield. The extension doubled the size of the centre 51,559 m² (554,981 ft²) to 106,130 m² (1,142,383 ft²) [1]. As well as adding many new retailers, the extension also houses an 800-seat foodcourt including a KFC outlet, a £30m twelve-screen Cinema de Lux and even more car parking facilities. Many retailers, including Debenhams, Marks and Spencers and Republic, closed their existing Derby stores to move to bigger stores in the extension. When the extension opened, the Eagle Centre was renamed 'Westfield Derby' (in line with other Westfield shopping centres).

In March 2014, it was announced that the property group Intu was to acquire Westfield Derby, and that it would be rebranded as Intu Derby once the acquisition was completed. On 1 May 2014 the rebranding of the centre to Intu Derby commenced, with all social media accounts and the website for the centre updated to Intu.

External links

• Intu Derby