This mall has seen better days. The once-bustling complex with all the high-street favorites is largely empty, with over 70 vacant units. Floorboards are loose, buckets collect water from the leaking roof, and the cafes are a mere facade.
It turns out all it needed was a visit from Taylor Swift.
The pop star filmed part of the music video for her latest single, “Opalite,” in Croydon’s Whitgift Centre—an unremarkable mall in a less remarkable London suburb. When Croydon appears in the news, it’s often for knife crime and drugs.
But the mall apparently was the perfect backdrop for Swift’s video, inspired by 1990s rom-coms and released in February. It features a scene where she and actor Domhnall Gleeson go down an escalator holding pretzels. The video, which reached over 15 million views on YouTube, also has appearances from Scottish singer Lewis Capaldi, Irish actor Cillian Murphy and talk show host Graham Norton.
And Swifties are here for it.
“I lost my head, I was so happy!” said Poppy Hogg of the moment she found out the music video had been filmed in her local mall.
Hogg, who grew up in Croydon, is one of many who rushed to visit the site in the days after the video dropped. Some have gathered to re-create the pretzel scene on the escalator, or to take selfies outside. Social media has rebranded the mall the WhitSwift Centre.
“I’m not sure why Taylor picked such a rundown place to film, but I’m gassed about it,” said Hogg, 24.
For businesses in the lightly trafficked spot, it’s been hard to miss the Swift effect. “People have come in the shop whispering ‘did you hear Taylor Swift filmed here?’” said Kate Sims, who works in a health store in the mall.
A British high-street shoe retailer, located near the now-famous escalator, posted on social media saying: “We’re still not over this.” One of the shop’s employees, who declined to give her name, said that since the video was released she had seen people of various ages coming to take photos of the scene during every shift she’s worked.
Chloe Cripps, raised in Croydon but now living in Sydney, Australia, said she instantly recognized the escalator and sent a screenshot to her family group chat. “Why the hell is Taylor Swift in Croydon?!” wrote Cripps, who said she visited the mall every weekend with her mom as a child.
Even the Labour Party’s candidate for Mayor of Croydon chimed in. She posted a video of herself on the escalator thanking Swift for “bringing a bit of sparkle” back to the mall, and promised, in her Eras Tour sweatshirt, to do the same for the town if she were elected.
While the short-term bump has been great, locals are really hoping for a new lease on life for their deserted mall. Already there have been signs of a more fundamental shift. Since Swift’s video, a filmmaker reportedly shot on location.
Rhys Strougler, who lives five minutes away, said the unlikely backdrop for the music video had brought locals a bit of positivity. “Croydon has had a bad reputation for a long time, but now people are starting to defend it,” the 31-year-old said. “This could be the start of something.”
Recent reviews have described the mall as derelict, depressing and “a hole of a centre.” Plans for a $2 billion redevelopment have been floated but never executed. Some anchor retailers have fled.
But five-star reviews have been creeping in. “I love it here, after Taylor Swift’s music video for opalite, I went to visit it and it felt absolutely magical and it really captured the essence of the 90s making me feel like I’ve gone back in time,” wrote one reviewer on Google. Another wrote: “What if I told you, you could magically turn all that crappiness into happiness? Introducing OPALITE!!”
This isn’t the first time Swift turned a mundane London site into a cultural landmark. The Swiftie trail runs from the Black Dog pub in South London, made famous by her song with the same name, to a club in North London that was a secondary filming location for the Opalite video. Swifties also flock to a kebab shop where she filmed part of a music video in 2016.
Swift’s impact on economies is a known phenomenon. When she’s in town, fans fill restaurants, bars and hotels. Her Eras tour—spread across two years, five continents and 149 shows— is estimated to have sold roughly 10 million tickets generating around $2 billion in revenue.
The hope is she can do a fraction of that for Croydon, which has been in and out of bankruptcy.
“If she can change economies,” said Cripps, “hopefully she can change Croydon.”
Write to Natasha Dangoor at natasha.dangoor@wsj.com
