Merry Hill Shopping Centre store by well over a decade, only closing when the retailer went into liquidation over the 2008/09 winter. The completion of Merry Hill resulted in the loss of many big name retailers from nearby town centres, with Dudley arguably being the hardest hit, suffering a 70% decline in retailing market share following Merry Hill's opening. However, some retailers kept their stores in nearby towns open, despite opening new stores at Merry Hill. WH Smith, who have been at Merry Hill since 1989, still have a store in Halesowen, and even opened a new store in Stourbridge during the 1990s. The
Westfield Parramatta expanded the Parramatta town centre south of the railway line. That original Grace Bros. store was later incorporated into the first stage development of the new Westfield Parramatta, opening in 1975 as the largest shopping centre in Australia at the time. Later stage redevelopments of the sites now occupied by the current Westfield Parramatta involved archaeological digs which uncovered artifacts dating back to the earliest days of Colonial settlement, reflecting Parramatta's history as the second oldest settlement in Australia. The first redevelopment of Westfield Parramatta took place between 1988 and 1989. This was followed by a large scale expansion of