CONSTRUCTION group Morgan Sindall has been picked to create the £15m development of an expansion to The Bridges shopping centre in Sunderland.
Around 150 jobs will be created by the work led by the London-based company, which has 7,000 staff including 100 at its North East office in Durham. Work is scheduled to start this month on the project which will see the opening of a new Primark store.
Jonathan Buckle, portfolio manager for The Bridges, said: “It’s great to see work starting on site and we’re very excited about the transformation we’re going to see over the coming months. We’ve worked hand-in-hand with Sunderland City Council to ensure we proposed a viable extension strategy and I can’t wait to see our ideas take shape.
“What’s more we’ll be bringing cranes back to the skyline of Sunderland city centre and creating much needed jobs for the local economy.” Andy Bradley, centre director of The Bridges, added: “Our ambition is to strengthen The Bridge’s reputation as one of the best shopping and fashion destinations in the North East for our 21 million customers who visit each year.
“We want to ensure people living in Sunderland don’t feel they need to look outside the city to meet their retail needs.
“Therefore we need to continually improve the retail mix as well as the look and feel of the shopping environment to make the centre a more attractive destination to our customers.” Gordon Ray, regional managing director for Morgan Sindall, said: “We’re so pleased further investment is being made in the centre of the city. The new extension will bring additional footfall to the already popular Bridges shopping centre.
“Morgan Sindall has a long track record of delivering high-quality retail facilities and is able to draw on a wealth of experience in this sector.
“We’re looking forward to building on our already strong relationship with Land Securities in the North East.”
As part of the expansion Land Securities will deliver a three storey 60,000 sq ft anchor store for Primark which will be double the size of its current location.
The expansion will also create a new entrance to the centre on High Street West and completion is anticipated in July 2012.
Land Securities also announced this month that it is expanding the large Topshop and Topman stores in the centre next January.
So far this year, The Bridges has welcomed 12.8 million shoppers through the centre, 4.9% higher than the same period last year.