Westfield Eastgardens is an Australian shopping centre in the Sydney suburb of Eastgardens. The centre was the largest shopping centre in Australia when it opened in September 1987. The centre is a joint venture, owned by the Terrace Tower Group and Scentre Group. It is operated and managed on a long term agreement by the Scentre Group. The centre's major tenants include three supermarkets, a department store, three discount department stores, and a cinema.
History
Westfield Eastgardens was built on the site of the former Urban Transit Authority Pagewood bus depot. The depot closed in 1982 and was soon followed by the nearby Holden and WD & HO Wills factories. The closure of these two sites would result in job losses of around 1,000 people. In order to save jobs, the Government of New South Wales persuaded the Westfield Group to develop the site. The Government rezoned the site and added crown land in order to convince Westfield. In July 1982, three other commercial landlords whose own trade would be affected by the new shopping centre made a challenge to the Land & Environment Court. Following this the Government passed legislation that disallowed an appeal to be made to the Land & Environment Court. Significant public debate followed about the right of the New South Wales Government to overrule the legal process. Westfield Eastgardens opened on 19 October 1987 and was the largest shopping centre in Australia for a short period until Chadstone Shopping Centre in Melbourne was redeveloped. When the centre opened, it had David Jones, Super Kmart, Target, Franklins, a 6-screen Hoyts cinema as well as 180 other retailers. The SuperKmart hypermarket combined a discount department store and supermarket under one roof until the store was split in 1989 into today's Coles and Kmart stores. The centre was redeveloped in 2002, with a new supermarket, discount department store and brought the total amount of retailers to 290 with parking for 3,260 cars and the upgrade of Hoyts. When the redevelopment completed, Westfield Eastgardens was the first shopping centre in New South Wales to house three discount department stores, Kmart, Target and Big W.
After 20 years as an anchor tenant, David Jones closed its store on 23 September 2007 due to its proximity to the company's Westfield Bondi Junction and Elizabeth Street/Market Street stores. Myer took over David Jones' space after an extensive refurbishment, opening on the 8 March 2008.
Roof collapse
Eastgardens suffered significant damage when part of the car park collapsed at around 07:00 on 24 July 2012. Around 500 people were evacuated from the building when a second-level steel beam that supported the car park roof broke. The entire shopping centre was closed off after a survey found the collapse may have caused structural damage in other areas of the building. The dislodgement of the beam caused a partial roof collapse near the food court entrance on the second level, bringing down a plant room, air conditioning units, a cool room, toilet facilities, exhaust fans and an electrical switchboard. Police set up an exclusion zone around the centre and redirected road traffic. The building was closed pending further investigation. The building reopened the following day for retail trade, although some areas in the food court remained closed. Repairs were underway to restore the collapsed sections of the building.
Facilities
Westfield Eastgardens has 303 stores, 84,627 m² of floor space on two levels and 3,263 car spaces. Major retailers are located on either end of the centre. Anchor tenants
