Centre hits land of Plenty

MELBOURNE: Shopping centre brand Westfield is to open another site in Melbourne's north.

The Westfield Plenty Valley centre, which officially opens its doors tomorrow (May 22), would feature a strong fashion offering including discount department stores Target and Kmart as well as 145 speciality stores largely comprised of high recall fashion brands, a spokesperson for the company confirmed.

Located in the suburb of Mill Park, the centre would transform the area currently known as Plenty Valley Town Centre into Westfield’s latest purpose built shopping destination. Based in one of Melbourne’s highest growth corridors, the $200 million extension to the town centre would see the retail space increase from 6,200 square metres to nearly 49,000 square metres.

Centre manager Fiona Mackenzie said residents in Melbourne’s outer north would no longer have to drive to multiple locations to do their shopping.

"Westfield Plenty Valley will provide everything customers need in one convenient location, with an extensive fresh food precinct, a 600 seat food court, fashion, gift and homewares stores, banks and a post office."

"With so many young families in the area, we’ve designed the shopping centre with their needs in mind, created a giant outdoor playground - the first in any Victorian shopping centre - as well as two indoor play areas and four parenting rooms. There’s ample parking, with 2,200 spaces and plenty of car parks for parents with prams."

Westfield planned to celebrate the Plenty Valley opening - which follows the launch of initial stages of two other Victorian centre enhancements in Geelong and Doncaster in recent months – with a four day entertainment program from Thursday May 22 to Sunday May 25.