New nerve centre will pave way for £1bn shops paradise

Nov 3 2007 by Larry Neild, Liverpool Daily Post

THE big countdown to the opening of Europe’s biggest retail and leisure scheme is to be given a boost this month with the launch of a new nerve centre.

Grosvenor’s information centre, in Lord Street, which houses models of the £1bn Paradise Street Project, is to be re-branded as the Liverpool One Information Centre.

The centre will also act as a nerve centre for one of the biggest ever recruitment drives in Liverpool, helping to fill the 5,000 jobs created in shops, bars, restaur-ants and leisure out- lets. A Shop for Jobs unit will be based in the centre to give information about vacancies in and around the city centre.

Next spring – some time in May – the two anchor stores, John Lewis and Debenhams, will open along with dozens of new shops.

Several months later, Chavasse Park and the restaurant terrace will open.

Just a few weeks ago, more than 3,500 people attended a recruitment event at the Debenhams store, a business new to Liverpool. Recruit- ment events have also been held at city Job- centres. Grosvenor’s Liverpool One comp- any is itself planning to hire 180 people to work on the running of the 43-acre city centre site.

Jacqui Pemberton, regional business manager at Deben- hams, said the comp- any was eager to hire as many local people as possible for its new Lord Street store.