Touchwood is a shopping centre in Solihull

Solihull

Solihull is a town in the West Midlands of England with a population of 94,753. It is a part of the West Midlands conurbation and is located 9 miles southeast of Birmingham city centre...

, West Midlands

West Midlands (county)

The West Midlands is a metropolitan county in western central England with a 2009 estimated population of 2,638,700. It came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972, formed from parts of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire. The...

, United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

.

History

Opened in 2001 and costing £110 million to build, the centre was built on the former car parks behind the High Street.

Around 250,000 cubic metres of earth were excavated to form the basements and over 4,000 tons of support the Touchwood structure.

Touchwood has the only John Lewis

John Lewis (department store)

-Recent developments:In June 2004, John Lewis announced plans to open its first store in Northern Ireland at the Sprucefield Park development, the province's largest out of town shopping centre, located outside Lisburn and from Belfast. The application was approved in June 2005 and the opening of...

 department store in the West Midlands, at 265000 sq ft (24,619.3 m²), as well as 80 other stores, over 20 restaurants and a Cineworld

Cineworld

Cineworld Group plc is a cinema chain operating in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Jersey. The chain consists of 78 cinemas; 76 of which are located in the UK and one each in Ireland and Jersey. It is the second-largest cinema operator in the UK with 801 screens, and the owner of...

nine-screen multiplex cinema.

The Touchwood access also leads to Library Square, for the Solihull Central Library and Arts Complex.