Thistles Marches
A new phase, known as Thistle II Ltd was financed by three joint ventures being Stirling Council (49%), John Laing Property (49%) and DepFa Bank (2%). A new 970 two storey car park, 14 stance bus station, 40 new units within the new phase and the creation of 400 jobs was the focus of the plans. The Thistle Marches opened to the public in September 1997 retaining Stirling's importance as the major regional centre outwith the main cities.
Standard Life Investments eventually bought the entire shopping centre in 1998 for £37.2 million, at least a year after the Thistles Marches phase was complete. The company paid £8 million back to the financies for their contributions.
As The Thistle Centre stands now, it has well over 500,000sq ft of retail space, its position in the heart of Stirling allows for a catchment area of over 500,000 people within 20 km of the centre. It is estimated that the centre currently attracts over 12 million visitors per year, with 3.7million likely to be tourists from other countries.
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