Take a peek inside the new look Wolverhampton Mander Centre

Many structural changes at the Mander Centre are already in use, including new escalators, and it is near impossible to walk through without hearing the sounds of builders at work.

Walls are being knocked through to create bigger units which it is hoped will attract the world's biggest retailers.

And in the most striking change of all,the former TJ Hughes building in Bell Street has been demolished to make way for a flagship 90,000 sq ft Debenhams.

These are exciting times for Commercial Retail Manager Robert Gough who took up the post up just before Christmas.

In an exclusive interview with the Express & Star, he outlined what has been achieved so far and how work will progress in the coming months.

He said: "To get the retailers that customers have told us they want in Wolverhampton and to keep customers here we had to produce stores which were big enough in size and attractive enough to national and international brands.

"That meant converting some existing units, knocking some together, and a lot of work has been done in the last six months which has been structural.

"What they have had to do as well is to re-shape the whole of the atrium and allow customers to flow around the centre in a different way.

"The aspiration has always been to open up the centre to allow people to see from one side to the other and to see Debenhams and when it is in and when it is open.

"To do that it meant we had to remove the existing escalators, the central lifts, and that has been a big job – but you can't just take them away and not have anything to replace them.

"So before we could remove them we had to start a programme of building a new lift housing and instigating new escalators to be built and placed."

Mr Gough, who spent 14 years working with Debenhams, said the next stage of work will see the revamped centre rapidly take shape.

He said: "Over the next six to 12 months what you will see is units becoming occupied and the completion of parts of the mall actually happening.

"A lot of the finishing touches will not come until 2017 but what is great is that customers have given us really good feedback about how the centre is evolving and they are seeing a different looking Mander Centre.

"I have been pleasantly surprised how quickly customers have adapted to the new lifts, to the escalators, and are finding their way around the centre." Once completed the flagship Debenhams store will spread across four floors and will be just a fraction smaller than its store at Merry Hill.

The centre's chief believes it will provide city shoppers with a wider range of goods than ever before and be a modern department store unrivalled in the West Midlands.

He added: "We have now completed the demolition of the old TJ Hughes and are at the rebuild phase which will be really exciting to see.

"Ultimately it will give us a really modern department store purposeful for this day and age and it will be newer than any of the other cities in the Midlands. Even Birmingham, yes it has got Grand Central but even that is a year old now.

"We will have a fabulous department store which gives customers a different level of choice than they are currently getting."

In addition to Debenhams the revamp is creating 10 larger units for the biggest retailers.

In July fashion giant H&M confirmed it will be moving into the Mander Centre.

Mr Gough said discussions are on-going with several other brands.

One retailer no longer in the plans is BHS which closes its doors for good on Wednesday.

"We were devastated when we heard the news," said Mr Gough.

"I used to work for Woolworths so I know how sad it can be when a store like that has its difficulties.

"We genuinely thought it would be salvaged and that isn't the case. We are working with the store manager there to see what we can do to make the human consequences as minimal as possible."

The revamp is due to be completed in autumn next year.