Westfield shopping centre London development project Essay

Westfield shopping centre London development project - Essay Example This paper is intended to identify and map out the key actors for each phase of Westfield Shopping Centre London Development Project, from its inception to the final use, as well as to describe and analyse the process of value generation and its distribution between the public and private sector. The paper also identifies the risks each of the main actors took within the project and the returns they get back for taking on those risks. Introduction Wilkinson and Reed (2008, p.) define the property development as â€Å"a process that involves changing or intensifying the use of land to produce buildings for occupation†. On the one hand the property development include not only the land/property itself, e.g. buying or selling it for a profit, but also the infrastructure, building materials, labour, finance, etc., which further determines the process as complex, lengthy and high-risk activity often involving large sums of money and providing a relatively illiquid product (Wilkinso n and Reed, 2008, p.2, 27). On the other hand, this activity does not exist apart from the wider economic and social contexts, whether at local or national levels; therefore, the market (in the case of market-driven economies) directly influences the process of property development. Like all market-driven activities, the property development appears an end product of the demand and supply imbalances generated in the user and investor’s sides of the market respectively; and is also subjected to different interests originating amongst various actors which are unequally represented in terms of whether financial, aesthetic, emotional, social, etc. profit or loss (D’Arcy and Keogh in Guy and Henneberry, eds., 2002, p.19). According to Wilkinson and Reed (2008, p.3) the development process could be divided into several not entirely sequential, often overlapping and repeating stages – initiation, evaluation, acquisition, design and costing, permissions, commitment, imp lementation, and final use – let/manage/dispose; and a variety of important actors appear either within each stage of the process or across some/all of them, as follows: public sector and government agencies, planners (planning authorities), financial institutions, building contractors, professional team, and objectors (Wilkinson and Reed, 2008, pp.13-27). Though these actors are likely to have different perspectives and expectations, they contribute to the outcome of the property development process. The property development process itself, despite its complexity, displays the general characteristics of any other industrial production process - a combination of various inputs in order to achieve an output or product; but there are two features that make it very different – the unique end product (either in terms of physical characteristics or location) and the constant public attention focused on it, from the first to the last stage (Wilkinson and Reed, 2008, p.2). Th e Brief Westfield London Shopping Centre is a mega mall situated in Shepherd’s Bush – London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, which provides 130  803 sq m (1  408  000 sq ft) of retail and leisure accommodation, being home to over 265 shops on five levels, 50 restaurants and cafes, as well as cinema, and car parks for 4  500 cars. The development project has involved regenerating over 44 acres of brownfield site, 9 separate rail projects including the rebuilding/relocation of an operational depot facility for London Underground’s Central Line, together with major road works and construction of three railway stations – two on London’s underground network and one on its over ground network. The project included redevelopment of two Dimco Buildings – Grade 2 listed structures built in 1898 and adjacent to the main construction site, a revamp of Shepherd’s Bush Green and new affordable housing schemes funded by Westfield Develop ment (BBC News, 2009; Savills UK, n.d.). Main phases and actors The development scheme was being