On the cusp of the new Millennium, 1999 became a key date in the city’s modern history for two reasons. First, Liverpool City Council put out the call for bids for Liverpool ONE – known as the Paradise Project - and also started their bid for the European Capital of Culture.   

The Paradise Project was the council’s vision to take 42 acres of derelict brownfield land, to ‘provide a new face to Europe’.  

There was concern amongst some in the council leadership that there would be no takers. Mark Preston, chief executive of Grosvenor, says “There was a deep feeling nothing would [change], people had got dispirited and weighed down. But 47 developers expressed interest.”  

The city was choked with ‘can’t do’, and ‘this won’t happen here’ attitude. People had lost faith in ever seeing change. “Once we started construction in 2004, and I was coming here every week, we had broken ground, were well underway, and I’d [be] stopped by people in the street who said, ‘oh, it’ll never happen’, And I said, ‘but it is happening’,” says Preston.  

In her 30-year career, Claire McColgan CBE, director of culture, Liverpool City Council, has worked on everything from charities supporting getting youngsters from estates to securing the city’s year as European Capital of Culture in 2008 and Eurovision in 2023.  

“When we decided to bid for the European Capital of Culture, it was about wanting something to move the whole city forward in a positive way,” she says.  

The city duly won, and it was staged in 2008, the year Liverpool ONE opened. But 2008 also marked the financial tsunami, “The deadline of the Capital of Culture was a focus in all of Grosvenor’s minds throughout the development. And delivering it faster cost us more to do it,” added Mark Preston.   

“Did we get the wobbles? I can speak very personally on this because at this point, I was chief executive of the UK business that was responsible for making decisions on this. 

“And there was no doubt in my mind that we needed to continue to complete as we intended. The late Duke (of Westminster), had promised the people of Liverpool we would deliver,” says Preston. 

He adds: “It was my job to deliver what he said he wanted delivered.” Despite the huge financial cost, which Preston calls, ‘very painful for us’. It was a commitment that had been made to the people of Merseyside, and “it is a hallmark of Grosvenor that we keep to our word. We also had faith that, in the long term, that by delivering on the quality and not cutting corners it would stand the test of time. 

“Consequently, it has proven to be a substantially good investment 15 years later. We knew history would be kinder to us if we stuck to our plans in what was a very difficult time financially.” 

He adds: “What we didn’t deliver was a shopping centre in the centre of Liverpool with a hermetically sealed roof, plonked in… we [built] a reinvigorated streetscape.  

“We delivered a heart of a city. And we continue to enjoy a good relationship with the city, and I hope we retain that close relationship.” 

Economically, the impact of the destination cannot be overstated. “It transformed the [city core], that is now knitted into that retail environment and linked across to the waterfront,” says Zoe Davidson, partner at Deloitte.  

Davidson hails the mixed-use development as, ‘the perfect project at the right time for Liverpool as a city, and the city region economy… it was a great meeting of minds, that’s paid dividends.’ 

She adds: “Seeing Liverpool ONE come through was, for us, the start of the trajectory we are still seeing today.”