Chinatown
Chinatown is unique in its concentration of restaurants and central location, close to Piccadilly Circus between the theatres and cinemas on Shaftesbury Avenue and Leicester Square. The area is noted for its high visitor numbers and long trading hours, with many restaurants open seven days a week and through the night.
Chinatown represents 24% of our property assets where 68 restaurants and 60 shops provide 86% of its income.
Chinatown, with its high concentration of restaurants at the heart of the West End, is benefitting from the increasing number of visitors to London, especially from China and the Far East.
Westminster City Council’s works to the Chinatown section of Wardour Street, together with much of Lisle Street, were completed during the summer. The pedestrian environment in these streets is now much improved, encouraging visitor access to Chinatown from Coventry Street, which reputedly has the highest footfall of any street in Europe.
The redevelopment of Leicester Square, immediately to the south of Chinatown, has commenced. With a budget of £10 million this will be the West End’s most significant public realm improvement scheme since Trafalgar Square in 2003. Together with the opening of an important new hotel on the site of the former Swiss Centre, this will undoubtedly add to the prosperity of the area.
Facts
| No. | Area Sq ft |
Gross income |
|
| Shops | 60 | 58,000 | 23% |
| Restaurants and leisure | 68 | 196,000 | 63% |
| Offices (tenancies) | 43,000 | 7% | |
| Residential | 86 | 61,000 | 7% |
