Watergardens Town Centre
| Location | Taylors Lakes, Victoria, Australia |
|---|---|
| Opening date | September 29, 1997 |
| Developer | QIC Global Real Estate |
| Management | QIC Global Real Estate |
| Owner | QIC Global Real Estate |
| No. of stores and services | 243 |
| No. of anchor tenants | 8 |
| Total retail floor area | 119,000 m2 (1,280,000 sq ft) |
| No. of floors | 1 |
| Website |
Watergardens Town Centre is a super regional shopping centre and homemaker complex located twenty-four kilometres north-west of Melbourne in the suburb of Taylors Lakes, served by Watergardens railway station. It is owned by QIC. It is well located in an area of newly developing estates. It currently has 243 businesses.
History
Built in Mid 1997, this shopping centre contained 178 businesses, including two supermarkets (Coles and Safeway), a discount department-store (Target), and two Terry White Chemist's in both sections of the centre as well as a Hoyts Cinema. Watergardens also has a major homemaker precinct across the road from the main centre, containing Bunnings Warehouse and Harvey Norman.
Watergardens Town Centre was also one of the first major shopping centres in Melbourne containing a unique dining and entertainment precinct located outside. With restaurants such as Cafe Greco, Grill'd, Hog's Breath Cafe and The Sporting Globe, and entertainment including AMF Bowling and Laser Skirmish, Hoyts Cinema and various outdoor activities throughout the year such as; concerts and festivals.
It also contains a wide variety of fast food shops including McDonald's, Subway, KFC, Muffin Break, Red Rooster, Ali Baba, Di Caprio's, Donut King, Gloria Jean's, Hungry Jack's, La Porchetta, Nando's and Wendy's.
A major development costing $138 million saw the centre nearly double in size. The expansion opened in April 2007, and included a Big W discount department store, a second Safeway supermarket, Rebel Sport, Dick Smith Electronics, and approximately 100 specialty shops, altogether totalling over 220 businesses. It also includes a 600-seat food court.
It supports local initiatives such as Neighbourhood Watch, and is "committed to making every member of the local community feel right at home in their very own shopping precinct."[1]
Stores
Watergardens contains seven major facilities:
- Coles supermarket - 12 Aisles
- Target discount department store
- Two Safeway supermarkets
- Big W discount department store
- Hoyts cinema complex
- AMF bowling centre
Transport
Watergardens is easily accessible from the Melton Highway with is located off one of Melbourne's urban freeways - the Calder Freeway. It can also be accessed from Watergardens Station, about 100 metres from the entrance, on the Sunbury line, and by Bus Routes 419, 421, 425, 461 and 476.[2]
Naming rights to Watergardens railway station
When the former St Albans line was extended out to include Keilor Plains and Sydenham, the Watergardens Town Centre consortium (QIC) bought the naming rights to the railway station, naming it Watergardens Station in 2002. The former St Albans line was referred to alternately as either the Sydenham line or the Watergardens line or occasionally as Sydenham/Watergardens. The station and railway serves as the separation between the suburbs of Sydenham and Taylors Lakes, with the shopping centre entirely located in Taylors Lakes. Since 2012, the line is now known as the Sunbury line as the electrification was extended to Sunbury.
References
Coordinates: 37°41′58″S 144°46′33″E / 37.69944°S 144.77583°E