The Redevelopment Of My Hometown: Intu Watford

I’ve lived in Watford all of my life and even when I went to university I couldn’t bring myself to move away so I stayed at home and commuted, it’s part of who I am. I’m going to be honest over the years other than additional houses/ flats being built and some new shops/ restaurants I don’t feel that the integral heart of Watford has changed all that much. But that’s set to change at the end of this year.

The idea of having a cinema in the town centre has been floating around since I was in primary school so 20+ years and finally it was announced a few years ago that this was set to become a reality with a Cineworld Imax setting up shop in the Watford town centre. This is only the start of it though, the Intu Centre is set to have a £180 million extension and a £13 million makeover which is absolutely huge.

Before the renovations started Watford had Charter Place outside the Intu Centre which housed the old Watford market, a few shops and not much else so gradually over the past few years the Market and shops were relocated to empty this space ready for renovation. The renovation will see this area become a futuristic space connected to the Intu Centre and accompanied by an amazing looking glass ceiling but still having that outdoor style feeling. The image below shows it from a birds eye view and it looks amazing.

The Imax Cineworld will be a good centre point of the extension but there’s also going to be a lot more going on. A huge four-story flagship Debenhams will anchor that end of the shopping centre with other fashion retailers who are currently inside the centre moving outside to bigger units; New Look, H&M and Topshop. I am so happy New Look is moving as when it came inside the centre it was tiny in comparison to how it used to be so this will be a great change. There will also be new retailers including Jack Wills and Superdry among others who haven’t been announced. Debenhams is set to be the first retailer to open on 27th September so less than 2 months now which is really exciting. All the other retailers/ restaurants etc will stagger their opening over the following few months finishing up at the beginning of 2019.

Debenhams is set to stay open until 7pm on Mon, Tues, Thurs and Fri alongside the fashion retailers which surround it compared to 6pm of the rest of the centre. There is talk that over time this might change and I’d welcome this so much. Getting home from work at 6pm it means my only option to pop into town is late night on a Thursday but the 7pm extension would open so many more options for me and others locally who may work.

To accompany the entertainment side of the extension there will be a Hollywood Bowl and a large amount of new restaurants including TGI Fridays, Bryon, Yo Sushi!, Las Iguanas, The Florist and Cabana which means the centre will become more of a destination as opposed to just a shopping centre. I am so happy to have a TGI Friday’s in town as the one in Garston you can only really get to via car and when they have so many amazing cocktails this doesn’t mix.

For someone who lives in Watford this is huge as I know it’s going to open up so many more opportunities locally and will make the centre thrive bringing it into the top 10 within the country. On a selfish point of view this means that the value of my flat in the town centre is going to increase too which makes me very happy.

It might be hard to visualise but you can check out this video to see how it’s set to look when it opens here.

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