Westfield and CSC: This town wasn't big enough for the both of them

So, what are we to make of Westfield’s decision to walk away from Broadmarsh within sight of a much-vaunted £450m revamp?
I don’t think there’s any question that they’ve decided it would be an awful lot easier to make the numbers add up elsewhere – specifically in the south east, which simply isn’t experiencing anything like the downturn seen in the rest of the country.
In Nottingham, they waded through a complex land assembly and protracted planning, only to see the economic tide head back out.
But the signs are that Westfield may not have made the first move in this decision (though it was certainly wearying of a planning process which went on so long a rival appeared).
No one locally knew about this decision in advance. There is evidence, too, that Westfield’s own UK executives may not have been the first to find out, either. Senior figures here were still proceeding with this plan as recently as last week.
From Capital Shopping Centres, under whose name a statement confirming the intended £55m purchase of Broadmarsh was issued yesterday, we have heard nothing.
So who was the driving force behind this move?
One interpretation is that this has the stamp of a clear-sighted attempt to solve the fundamental dilemma facing both Westfield and Capital Shopping Centres: both were pitching the same set of high-profile retailers.
So only one scheme was going to succeed.
This would have affected the prospects – and therefore the value – of the losing side. The respective shareholders in Westfield and CSC would not have wanted that to happen. So there was a price to be negotiated, one determined by the present and future value of one centre and the impact its development might have on the value of the other.
It’s the kind of deal negotiated by people who know development lives on private profits not public plaudits. Pretty no-nonsense hard-heads, I’d guess.
The no-nonsense hard-heads behind this deal have solved their problem. Infact, they’ve handed the dilemma back to the city’s planners and politicians…whose measure of success is defined by the same criteria in reverse: plaudits not profits.
Nottingham City Council wanted the Broadmarsh revamp to go-ahead because it would rid the city of a series of shockingly decrepit 1960s eyesores which should have been levelled by a smartbomb 20 years ago.
Instead, we would have a new, expanded shopping centre featuring big-name retailers in eye-catching street scenes which spoke of an ambitious regional capital.
So one last deal is still to be done. It will determine whether Capital Shopping Centres expands the Victoria Centre and merely dusts a few cobwebs off Broadmarsh, or is persuaded that there is a way of making the Broadmarsh numbers add up in a way Westfield decided it couldn’t.
This will be a very tough negotiation for Nottingham City Council, a negotiation which will determine the way our city looks for perhaps 30 years ahead.
Whether in person or proxy, the man they will effectively be dealing with may well have been cutting a deal with someone in Sydney recently.
He is clearly a formidably determined character. And he now has Nottingham’s retail future in his hands.