Cascades Shopping Centre is an enclosed

shopping centre A shopping center in American English, shopping centre in English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English (see American and British English spelling differences#-re, -er, spelling differences), shopping complex, shopping arcade, ...

in the city centre of

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. Most of Portsmouth is located on Portsea Island, off the south coast of England in the Solent, making Portsmouth the only city in En ...

on the South Coast of

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. It has a wide range of

High Street High Street is a common street name for the primary business street of a city, town, or village, especially in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth. It implies that it is the focal point for business, especially shopping. It is also a metonym fo ...

retailers, and its own

multi-storey car park A multistorey car park (Commonwealth English) or parking garage (American English), also called a multistorey, parking building, parking structure, parkade (Canadian), parking ramp, parking deck, or indoor parking, is a building designed fo ...

connecting straight into the malls by lifts and stairs. The building contract, described variously as worth £40 million, £45 million or £50 million, was won in 1987 by

Taylor Woodrow Construction Taylor Woodrow Construction, branded as Taylor Woodrow, is a UK-based civil engineering contractor and one of four operating divisions of Vinci Construction UK. The business was launched in 2011, combining civil engineering operations from the ...

. As originally designed, the shopping centre had of retail space on a site covering overall. The

anchor tenant In North American, Australian and New Zealand retail, an "anchor tenant", sometimes called an "anchor store", "draw tenant", or "key tenant", is a considerably larger tenant in a shopping mall, often a department store or retail chain. They are ...

was

British Home Stores British Home Stores, commonly abbreviated to BHS and latterly legally styled BHS Ltd, is an online store and formerly a British department store chain, primarily selling clothing and household items. In its later years, the company began to exp ...

, with an shop; existing city-centre stores belonging to C&A,

Littlewoods Littlewoods was a retail and football betting company founded in Liverpool, England, by John Moores in 1923. By the 1980s, it had grown to become the largest private company in Europe but subsequently declined in the face of increased compe ...

and

Marks & Spencer Marks and Spencer plc (commonly abbreviated to M&S and colloquially known as Marks & Sparks or simply Marks) is a major British multinational retailer based in London, England, that specialises in selling clothing, beauty products, home produc ...

were expanded into the new centre. A 600-vehicle multi-storey car park was built into the centre, which also had a food court. Work began on the centre in May 1987 and it opened in September 1989. The site was previously occupied by Charlotte Street and Moores Square, where a regular street market was held. The city council had announced that the stalls would be moved to a new location at the end of February 1987, but by late April – when redevelopment work was underway – they had still not been relocated. The Centre had a £20m redevelopment of the ground and lower ground floors during 2006/2007. The food hall was converted to shopping floorspace and the open atrium above it was filled in to provide an extra 2,500 square metres of retail space and 54 additional car park spaces. The new mall was opened by the Lord Mayor of Portsmouth Councillor Mike Blake at an official ceremony on 29 May 2007. However, the demolition of the

Tricorn Centre The Tricorn Centre was a shopping centre, shopping, nightclub and car park complex in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England. It was designed in the Brutalist architecture, Brutalist style by Owen Luder and Rodney Gordon and took its name from the sit ...

and the delay on the redevelopment of the area by

Portsmouth City Council Portsmouth City Council is the local authority of the city of Portsmouth, in the ceremonial county of Hampshire, England. Portsmouth has had a council since medieval times, which has been reformed on numerous occasions. Since 1997 the council ha ...

has created a large car park immediately outside; whilst the closure of Woolworths has rendered a large retail unit that was unused for many years, until Primark bought the unit to use to expand their store. This has made the redevelopment, with its consequent loss of smaller shops and food outlets, largely unnecessary. The redevelopment removed the food court, the iconic glass lifts and large naturally lit atrium. The shopping centre was offered up for sale in 2021 by its owner RPMI Railpen, with a asking price of £18 million.

Stores

The Centre has seen many stores close in recent years. The large Marks & Spencer store has been relocated to Ocean Retail Park in Copnor. The Centre has over 60 shops, including

Claire's Accessories Claire's (formerly known as Claire's Boutiques, Claire's Boutique and Claire's Accessories) is an American retailer of accessories, jewelry, and toys primarily aimed towards tween and teen girls, and young women. It was founded in 1961 and is ...

Next NeXT, Inc. (later NeXT Computer, Inc. and NeXT Software, Inc.) was an American technology company headquartered in Redwood City, California that specialized in computer workstations for higher education and business markets, and later develope ...

Primark Primark Limited (; trading as Penneys in Ireland) is an Irish multinational fashion retailer with headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, with outlets across Europe and in the United States. The original ''Penneys'' brand is not used outside of Irel ...

, New Look Men,

TK Maxx TK Maxx is a discount clothing and homewares retailer, founded in 1994. It is currently based in Watford, England. It is owned by American retailer TJ Maxx, who could not trade under the initials "TJ" in the United Kingdom due to the British d ...

and many independent shops.

References

External links

*
Portsmouth City Council information sheet
{{Shopping centres in Southeast England Shopping centres in Hampshire Buildings and structures in Portsmouth Tourist attractions in Portsmouth