Bluewater

Bluewater Shopping Centre is an out-of-town shopping centre in Stone, Kent, England, just outside the M25 motorway ring, 17.8 miles east south east of London's centre. Opened on 16 March 1999 in a former chalk quarry after ten years of building works, the site occupies 240 acres and has a sales floor area of 154,000 m2 over three levels, making it the fifth-largest shopping centre in the UK. Elsewhere in Europe only Istanbul's Cevahir Mall and Vienna's Shopping City Süd are bigger. The floor plan is a triangular shape with 210 stores, including 3 anchors, 50 cafés and restaurants, and a 17-screen cinema. The centre employs 7,000 people and serves over 27 million visitors a year. A main rival is the Lakeside Shopping Centre and its two retail parks in West Thurrock, Essex, just across the River Thames, 8 miles away by road or 3.2 miles as the crow flies.

It is owned by three major UK institutions: Landsec, Prudential and PRUPIM and Hermes.