Merry Hill Shopping Centre had agreed to become tenants of a new department store in the final phase of the shopping complex. It opened on 23 October 1990, replacing the recently closed stores in nearby towns West Bromwich and Dudley; the retailer had hoped that its Merry Hill store could co-exist with the West Bromwich and Dudley stores, but the onset of the recession and a general downturn in trade in these towns led to the closure of both stores on 25 August 1990. On 24 December 1990, the shopping centre was sold to Mountleigh. Development of the steelworks site did not commence until
Merry Hill Shopping Centre years later when withdrawing from the UK, and by 1990 it had been taken over by Asda, who already had a store in Brierley Hill as well as several others in the wider Black Country area, but surprisingly, the Brierley Hill store remained open. A second shopping centre opened on the ground level in 1987 and the centre was expanded further in early 1988 to include an upper level, although the bulk of the centre was opened on 14 November 1989 - by which time it was the largest shopping centre in Europe. By the time of its completion, Merry