Date:
Woking’s much-anticipated new retail, residential and leisure destination, Victoria Place Woking, has officially opened today (Wednesday 23 March 2022).
The opening was celebrated with an official ribbon-cutting ceremony, attended by the Mayor of Woking, Cllr Liam Lyons, and Leader of Woking Borough Council, Cllr Ayesha Azad. The ceremony marked both the official opening of the destination and anchor store, Marks and Spencer (M&S).
Retail therapy
M&S opened its impressive 50,000 sq ft store in Henry Plaza, featuring a market-style foodhall, 100-seat M&S Café and extensive clothing and home departments stocking the retailer’s full range of sought-after products.
Joining M&S in opening were formalwear specialist, Moss Bros. The store will stock their full collection of versatile clothing, footwear and accessories, including its specialist range of suits and recently established casualwear range.
Skechers, the world-famous athletic footwear and apparel brand, opened its first Woking store, offering shoppers an astonishing 700 different styles of footwear and fashion under their ethos of quality, innovation and comfort.
And among this first wave of openings is Gail’s bakery and café, providing customers with the highest quality freshly baked breads, pastries and cakes throughout the day, as well as hand-roasted speciality grade house blend coffee.
Cllr Ayesha Azad, Leader of Woking Borough Council, said: “The opening of Victoria Place Woking marks the start of an exciting new era for the borough and is a significant milestone on our journey to making Woking one of, if not the most, exciting and vibrant boroughs in the south east.
“We set out to breathe new life into the town centre with our ambitious multi-faceted transformation and I’m proud to welcome the likes of M&S, Gail’s, Moss Bros and Sketchers who share our vision for a thriving retail and visitor destination.
“Victoria Place Woking will define our borough and benefit current and future generations for years to come, and I’m looking forward to working with residents and local businesses to make the most of the opportunities the new development will bring.”
A joint venture between Woking Borough Council and Moyallen Group, the £700 million investment in Victoria Place Woking is a key component in Woking’s future growth ambitions and the council’s mission to create a high quality, modern environment where people aspire to live and businesses choose to locate.
In addition to the 125,000 sq ft of new premium retail space, Victoria Place Woking features 429 residential apartments in two iconic sky-high towers, a new four star Hilton hotel, two public plazas and new parking facilities.
Woking Marches on
Part of Woking’s breath-taking new skyline, The Marches, takes in both 30-storey and 34-storey towers featuring 429 studio, one and two-bed apartments, will welcome their first tenants in the coming weeks.
The build-to-rent apartments offer jaw-dropping views, convenient modern living in a vibrant and accessible location. Residents will enjoy all the benefits of town centre living, easy access to the borough’s countryside, all within a quick commute to central London.
On track to open later this year, the new Hilton hotel will feature 189 guest rooms, including 12 suites, as well as a ballroom for up to 500 people and 7,000 sq ft of meeting room space, adding to the town’s already impressive business offer.
To accommodate visitors to Victoria Place Woking, a new 1,556 capacity car park has also opened, featuring ticketless entry, 78 electric vehicle charge points (rising to 200 charge points as demand increases and funded by an award of £166,090 from the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles), 80 disabled parking bays, 54 parent and toddler parking bays, and an exclusive M&S ‘click & collect’ area.
Incorporated into the design of the new car park is a stunning living wall featuring an impressive 475,000 individual plants that will help improve air quality by trapping pollutants.
More to come
Later this year, Victoria Place Woking will welcome performing arts academy, Italia Conti, leading national gym chain, The Gym Group, and entertainment complex, Woking SuperBowl.
As one of the oldest and most respected performing arts institutions, Italia Conti, will be incorporating its sites at Barbican, Clapham and Guildford into one, making Victoria Place Woking its sole home this summer.
Their new state-of-the-art 47,000 sq ft home will play a key role in the academy’s future growth and expansion plans.
Meanwhile, The Gym Group, will open a new gym in Bandstand Mall within The Peacocks Centre. The gym will offer affordable, no contract membership with access to high-spec training equipment and a range of unlimited free gym classes. Whilst Woking SuperBowl will open its doors this summer, bringing 16 lanes of state-of-the-art ten pin bowling to Victoria Place Woking.
Discover public art
Henry Plaza, Victoria Place Woking’s stunning glass covered atrium, has become the permanent home to two outstanding new pieces of public art by popular British sculptors David Worthington and Sean Henry. They have jointly conceived a new exhibition ‘Forever in the Now’ in partnership with The Lightbox Gallery, which has opened to the public today (Wednesday 23 March) and will run throughout this spring.
Free parking
Parking in the town’s Red, Yellow, Blue and Green car parks (collectively known as the Shoppers’ Car Park) will be free all day and night until midnight, Sunday 3 April to celebrate the opening of Victoria Place Woking.
So why not take advantage of this special offer and find out for yourself why Woking is becoming a destination of choice.