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Merry Hill is home to over 310 Shops, Retail Park, Cinema and a Eat Central food hall including Pizza Express & Nandos with 10,000 Car Parking Spaces. Adjacent to the main shopping site is The Waterfront, which accommodates offices for HM Revenue and Customs amongst others, and has a marina area providing space for a number of bars and restaurants.
The Dudley No.1 Canal passes though the adjacent Waterfront site and high above the edge of the shopping centre, before descending Delph Locks.
The Enterprise Zone encompassed both the former steelworks site and a large open green space known as Merry Hill Farm. This was cherished locally as a haven for wildlife. In 1982, the site was bought by Richardson Developments with the intention of constructing a large shopping centre. 1982 also saw the closure of the Round Oak Steelworks after 125 years.
There was much hostility when building of the first phase of the shopping centre commenced on the green space, rather than on the former steelworks site, which itself was incorporated into the enterprise zone in 1984.
Despite protests from local citizens the site was destroyed, and the first retailers moved onto the site in 1985 when a retail park was built.
The first shopping mall and a second phase of the retail park opened in April 1986 (incorporating the Carrefour hypermarket which opened on 1 July that year) and the second in November, to form phase 3. .
Phases 4 opened in two stages; the lower level in 1987 and the upper level in 1988. A 10-screen cinema was opened in November 1988.
The 350-seat Jules Verne food court, which offered a round the world eating experience and had a large globe-shaped balloon as its centerpiece, was opened in June 1989, only to close within five years due to disappointing trade. It was redeveloped with shops.
Phase 5 was completed in September 1989, and virtually all of the units were open by the time the centre was officially opened on 14 November 1989, with Debenhams and British Home Stores being among the last big retail names to move to stores within the complex. The Marks and Spencer department store opened in October 1990, replacing the recently closed stores in nearby towns West Bromwich and Dudley.
On 24 December 1990 , the shopping centre was sold to Mountleigh.
The steelworks site was not built on till later stages of the Merry Hill/Waterfront Project. The Waterfront section, which consisted of Phases 6-8, was constructed between 1989 and 1995. Phase 6 saw the construction of of offices (the first of which were occupied in late 1990), Phase 7 saw the construction of of restaurants and bars and Phase 8 saw the addition of a business park.
Phase 4 was partly remodelled in 1996, just eight years after it had been built.
Road access to the complex was improved in 1998 with the completion of alterations to the two access points from the A4036 main road between Dudley and Pedmore - this resulted in more than 40 houses being demolished to make way for the widened road and re-designed Quarry Bank junction.
Merry Hill had brought about the first free-standing Pizza Hut in the UK, the first drive-in McDonald's restaurant and the largest Texas Homecare store.
While the centre was still being developed in the late 1980s, plans were unveiled to build the world's tallest tower at Merry Hill. The tower would have been 2,000 feet tall, with a hotel at its base, a restaurant halfway up and a nightclub at the top. However, plans to build it were scrapped in 1992.
The first retailer to move to Merry Hill was furniture retailer MFI, who opened a retail warehousing unit during 1985. MFI would trade from this unit for 23 years until they went into liquidation in December 2008, with the store later being purchased and refurbished by electrical retailer BestBuy, who opened their store in May 2010.
By the summer of 1986, two retail parks existed at the site, incorporating retailers including B&Q;, Halfords and Texas Homecare.
The first shopping mall opened in April 1986, with French hypermarket giant Carrefour opening a store in the mall on 1 July that year. They sold the store to Gateway two years later when withdrawing from Britain, and just two years later it was taken over by Asda, who already had a store in Brierley Hill town centre as well as several others in the wider Black Country area, but surprisingly, the Brierley Hill store remained open.
A second shopping mall opened in November 1986 and the centre was expanded further during 1988, although the bulk of the centre was fully opened on 14 November 1989 - by which time it was the largest shopping centre in Europe. By the time of its completion, Merry Hill included several multiple stores including clothing retailers C&A; and Littlewoods, general department store British Home Stores and supermarket chain J Sainsbury, as well as numerous smaller retailers.
In October 1990, Marks & Spencer opened a new department store at Merry Hill, replacing the recently closed stores in nearby towns Dudley and West Bromwich. In the late 1990s, Marks & Spencer took over the lease of the former Littlewoods store and converted into a furniture and menswear store.
The completion of Merry Hill resulted in the loss of many big name retailers from nearby towns, with Dudley being particularly hard hit.
However, some retailers kept their stores in nearby towns open despite opening new stores at Merry Hill. WH Smith, who have been at Merry Hill since 1989, still have stores in Dudley and Halesowen and even opened a new store in Stourbridge during the 1990s. C&A;, who had a store at Merry Hill from 1989 until withdrawing from Britain in 2001, kept their Dudley store open until January 1992. Marks & Spencer had originally wanted to keep their Dudley store open even after the opening of a new store at Merry Hill, but falling trade in Dudley led to the company deciding that the Dudley store was no longer viable and it closed in August 1990 just weeks before its replacement opened at Merry Hill. Littlewoods kept their Dudley store open for a few months after its Merry Hill replacement opened in 1989, cashing in on the 1989 Christmas sales before closing it in January 1990.
A further blow came when the local council, Dudley Metropolitan Borough, announced that it was bringing in parking charges throughout its area; this turned more shoppers away from local towns, and towards the Merry Hill Centre, where parking remains free.
Dudley Council have nonetheless announced large increases in car parking charges in the rest of the Borough, including Brierley Hill where some charges have increased by over 100%, resulting in continuing rumours that parking charges may be soon introduced at the Merry Hill Centre.
After more than 20 years, local towns have still not been able to compete with the centre, and have become increasingly run-down, though schemes to improve things are occasionally mooted.The Merry Hill Centre continues to draw most of its trade from local towns. The developers did plan that the Centre would attract visitors from across the country, by building coach parks; however these were redeveloped with private houses and flats in 2003.
The monorail cost £22 million to build. There were to be five stations, with the system extending over the canal and terminating close to the site of the former Round Oak railway station: Where an interchange with a Midland Metro extension was proposed. However, only the first four stations were completed.
The system was officially opened on 1 June 1991. But the actual opening to the public was delayed by Her Majesty's Railway Inspectorate investigating evacuation procedures. After operating for a short while, the monorail was temporarily closed again in 1992, but ran sporadically until 1996.
After the system was put up for sale in 1996, with a total retail floorspace of 154,002m² (1.593m ft²), making the centre the third largest in the United Kingdom, behind the MetroCentre and Bluewater.
Merry Hill is home to anchor stores Debenhams, Marks and Spencer, Primark & Bhs and supermarkets Asda & Sainsbury's. Other stores include Next, H&M;, TK Maxx, Gap, Topshop/Topman, Vero Moda/Jack & Jones, Republic, hmv, Waterstones, River Island, Clas Ohlson, Henleys, Superdry, Henri Lloyd, French Connection, Boots, Argos Extra, Peacocks, Poundworld, Poundland, The Entertainer, Footasylum, Schuh, JD Sports, Hotel Chocolat, Evans, WH Smith, KRCS, Dorothy Perkins, Burtons, Fruit of the Loom, Lipsy, Disney Store & New Look
A food court had been developed at Merry Hill in the late 1980s. The Jules Verne Food Court offered a range of foods from around the world, with a centrepiece globe-shaped balloon reflecting its round-the-world eating experience. However, this was not a successful venture, and it closed in 1992 to be replaced with shops.
In addition, the cinema near to multi-storey car park has recently received a major rebrand into an Odeon Cinemas. The refit, costing over £1 million, has seen the inside of the cinema completely modernised throughout, with brand new seating in all auditoriums.
In Spring 2010 a HomeSense opened on 22nd May 2010 in former Allied Carpets/Powerhouse unit and a Currys PC World 2-in-1 Megastore opened on June 3rd in the former Au Naturale and Currys unit, and Best Buy opened 25th June in the former MFI unit. In late summer 2010 Two Seasons opened and Clas Ohlson, Lipsy London, FootAsylum, & The Entertainer gave opened recently.
Various distance bus services operate from Merry Hill from National Express West Midlands, Diamond Bus, Hansons and Midland.
The integration programme is part of a major urban regeneration project and will see the creation of a new mixed usage town centre through the physical and social integration of the areas.
There is talk of John Lewis being built at a later stage, as well as the possibility of an Apple Store but there will be a Junjou Spa & Oswald Bailey
the centre made a brief appearnce on the childresn tv show rosie and jim showing the large sainsburys store.
However, this was sold off to Travel West Midlands in 1998, and subsequently rebranded Travel Merry Hill, leaving Merry Hill Centre management to concentrate on the shopping centre itself.
Category:Shopping centres in the West Midlands (county) Category:Westfield Group Category:Buildings and structures in Dudley Category:Shopping malls established in 1985 Category:Von Roll people movers
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