Tesco plans Lewisham revamp
Tesco has revealed plans to redevelop its central Lewisham supermarket. Presumably mindful of the major influx of potential customers being lured to within walking distance by the Silk Mills and Renaissance developments, the designs place a lot of emphasis on improving pedestrian links to the shop.
Tesco's pitch is:
- A modernised store offering a first class shopping experience within an improved environment
- A completely redesigned modern entrance opening out onto the Silk Mills path
- Landscape improvements to the walkway alongside the River Quaggy, creating an area of public space
- Enhancing the river with additional planting and gravel to improve its flow
- A completely redesigned car park with improved lighting to provide better security and safety
- Separate dedicated entrances for pedestrians, buses and cars to make access easier and safer
By Tesco standards, the designs are relatively modernist, eschewing their usual kitsch stylings. And the public space improvements look like they'll be an improvement.
They also say, in an unhelpfully cryptic way:
Our plans allow for the future longer-term development of the island site and the adjacent surface car park to develop new homes and create a new town centre neighbourhood to meet Lewisham Council's aspirations.
If anyone knows anything more about these longer-term plans (which sound far more significant than the ones the website promotes), please share.
[Full disclosure: As I've mentioned many times before, the agency I work for, Edelman, does a small amount of work for Sainsbury's]
30 comments:
Cant wait to see what Lewisham station will be like when those developments are finished.
You want petrol n all?
that artists impression is definitely no beauty...
Not so cryptic, as their plans for Woolwich's Tesco also include housing - the new Greenwich Council offices there are the first stage of the development.
Isn't it time Lewisham station was flattened and rebuilt as a proper interchange?
Can they not thatch the roof and get some tudor beams in? I may refuse to allow them to stock my range of high end produce until they see sence. That'll learn them.
I heard they were going to redevelopv the OKR shop too, to include housing on top...
I'm surprised the dog poo story hasn't been picked up yet...
If they are "to meet Lewisham council's aspirations" then God help us.
There's a graffitied Tesco Express due to open near the Ladywell leisure centre sometime - but that may beyond the radar of the Brockley chattering classes
You've just chattered about it.
Tesco is taking over the world I tell you.
I don't live in Brockley
Can they try stocking the shelves first?
But where will the poor people shop when we take over?
On the one hand, Tesco is of course the personification of corporate evil. On the other hand, it's somewhat encouraging that a big (evil, EVIL!) company is interested in investing in Lewisham.
There's also a Tesco Express opening further down towards Rushey Green. Taking over the world indeed
the development opposite Brockley Jack, higher than the Jack, and another food supermarket at the bottom! might be Tescos
It is easy to get the feeling that this is the saturation bombing of London by the Tesco corporation.
Surely eating dog pooh has to be the story of the week?
Anon, nobody is really interested in your dog poo story, as is evident from the lack of response. If you really want to tell it, just tell it rather than clogging up the thread with references to it.
The campaign welcomes the expansion of Tescos to provide decent, proper food to the residents of Lewisham.
Indeed, their Seeds Of Change Organic Spinach Trotolle is to die for. Oh, and the buckwheat muesli!
Proper food.
Proper food, not artisan balls.
@Darryl: Interesting about the development of housing above the supermarket. This was an idea that was really being talked about back in the early 2000s when I worked at Sainsbury's, and there was some talk of doing it at the New Cross Gate branch.
Asda in Feltham, admittedly a completely new build, has a block of flats on top of it and I think councils are increasingly looking towards this model. It's a win-win, at least in urban areas like London; much more efficient use of space, more housing, rents presumably going to the supermarket chain.
I never go to that Tesco's in Lewisham so am not familiar with the site, but good to see that they're interested in improving it.
The plans for the OKR looked quite good to me but were opposed (natch) and then dropped.
"Artisan balls" Are they Tesco Finest?
@Patrick1971 - you would think it was a win-win. Flats above supermarkets and the like however didn't used to play well with the mortgage lenders. The mix of residential and commercial created all sorts of problems relating to lease lengths, maintenance responsibility and the like.
I always felt that a little sad, because it seems like such an obvious opportunity. The space above the Sainsbury's in New Cross Gate is entirely wasted with a two-storey building and putting 11-storey towers beside it for residential wasn't a better solution.
Historically, albeit on a smaller scale, this sort of mixed use was common throughout the Victorian era (just look at most of our high streets) and is still common in parts of Europe.
There has been a Tesco mixed-use development in Earls' Court for a while now - let us hope that the idea can take off again in the UK.
Is no one going to highlight Nick's links to the illuminati here?
doesn't the sainsbury's in forest hill have flats above?
That looks so good
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