The Ridings Shopping Centre is an indoor

shopping centre A shopping center (American English) or shopping centre (Commonwealth English), also called a shopping complex, shopping arcade, shopping plaza or galleria, is a group of shops built together, sometimes under one roof. The first known collec ...

Wakefield Wakefield is a cathedral city in West Yorkshire, England located on the River Calder. The city had a population of 99,251 in the 2011 census.https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/ks101ew Census 2011 table KS101EW Usual resident population, ...

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exi ...

, England. It opened on 17 October 1983. The pioneering centre was a UK first and subsequently served as a template for many shopping centres throughout the UK.

Stores and services

The Ridings Centre covers an area of and has an estimated annual footfall of 11 million. The centre contains a number of retailers such as Boots,

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Morrisons Wm Morrison Supermarkets, trading as Morrisons, is the fifth largest supermarket chain in the United Kingdom. As of 2021, the company had 497 supermarkets across England, Wales and Scotland, as well as one in Gibraltar. The company is headqua ...

Primark Primark Stores Limited (; trading as Penneys in the Republic of Ireland) is an Irish multinational fast fashion retailer with headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. It has stores across Europe and in the United States. The Penneys brand is not u ...

and

TK Maxx TK Maxx is a subsidiary of the American apparel and home goods company TJX Companies based in Framingham, Massachusetts. The stores operate throughout the United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, Germany, Poland, Austria and the Netherlands, totalli ...

as well as a number of independent stores. The centre has three car parks (each assigned a colour) including three multi-storeys and a rooftop car park. A five-screen Reel Cinema opened in the centre in 2019.

History

The Ridings Centre opened on 17 October 1983. It included construction of a large complex to house the upper and middle malls along with the blue and red car parks. In addition to this, an existing open shopping precinct on Kirgate originally opened in 1972 was roofed and extensively updated to become the lower mall, and the existing Almhouse Lane multi-storey was adapted to become the green car park. It was the first of its kind in the UK, containing features such as a food court inspired by shopping centres in the

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and its major popularity upon opening meant there were queues even to enter the centre. The centre was extensively refurbished in 2008 at a cost of £2.5 million. The improvements included a redesign of the centre's entrances as well as new lifts (replacing the original glass wall-climber lift that was the first in the UK). The Ridings Centre was purchased in 2015 by

NewRiver NewRiver REIT plc is a specialist listed real estate investment trust (REIT), focused primarily on retail and leisure property. The company owns 33 shopping centres, 25 retail warehouses, 14 high street units and over 700 public houses. The company ...

. This was followed by a £5 million renovation in 2017 which included a new

food court A food court (in Asia-Pacific also called food hall or hawker centre) is generally an indoor plaza or common area within a facility that is contiguous with the counters of multiple food vendors and provides a common area for self-serve dinner. I ...

and space for 'pop-up' shops.

Awards

*The Ridings Centre won the award for 'European Shopping Centre Of The Year' on numerous occasions. *In 2018 the centre won the Revo Purple Apple Marketing Awards, obtaining a Golden Apple Award.

Transport connections

The Ridings Centre is located near

Wakefield Westgate Wakefield Westgate railway station is a mainline railway station in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England. It is south of Leeds to the west of the city centre, on the Wakefield Line and Leeds branch of the East Coast Main Line. The first Westga ...

and Wakefield Kirkgate railway stations as well as

Wakefield Bus Station Wakefield Bus Station serves the city of Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England. The bus station is owned and operated by Arriva Yorkshire. It is situated at next to Marsh Way A61 and the city's new market and can be accessed from both Marsh Way a ...

. The centre is located near the A61 and the M1.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ridings Centre, The Buildings and structures in Wakefield Shopping centres in West Yorkshire Shopping malls established in 1983