THE £200m Central Village development is expected to have a massive impact on Liverpool’s retail and leisure offer when it opens in 2013.
The six-acre scheme, which is around Liverpool Central station and takes in parts of Bold Street, Ranelagh Street and Renshaw Street, will combine shops, restaurants, hotels and a cinema.
City Central BID chief executive Ged Gibbons said: “The retail streetscape is changing, and in 2013 it will look very different to what we have got now.
“The biggest boost to our economy will be Central Village. It will add a new dimension to our city.”
With the focus of shoppers having been on Liverpool One for the last couple of years, city shoppers could once again be taking another look at the other end of Church Street.
Two restaurant chains – Chiquito and Frankie & Benny’s – signed up last month, joining the Odeon, which will open a six-screen digital cinema.
The Millennium and Copthorne hotels have also pre-let space, and will add more than 400 hotel rooms to the city’s burgeoning hotel sector, as well as a 125-bedroom Aparthotel to Adagio.
The scheme is expected to create 1,000 construction jobs with a further 2,000 permanent jobs created once the scheme is fully open.
Construction work started last year on Central Village’s first phases, including the wholesale redevelopment of the Lewis’s building and construction of the 500-bay car park.
The development will also change the look of the area, adding landscaped public space, including a boardwalk and a water feature.
