The Company Without Limits

The argument worked; she got her budget. Then she spent the next 12 months defending and promoting her brief against the tough finance, legal, design, construction, customer-service, and industrial-relations reviews that make up the PCG process. The result: The first stage of Campus MLC -- the realization of her dream -- was built less than a year after that first budget meeting.

But nowhere at Lend Lease has the interaction between dreams and discipline yielded more dramatic results than in the Bluewater project. "I'd sit in the Bluewater PCG, arguing about the importance of an authentic winter garden to the overall leisure experience," recalls Eric Kuhne. "At the same time, I'd listen to arguments from the retail-delivery side about what it takes to get 320 shops open and profitable in short order. Then the fund managers would ask how the project would contribute to the long-term value of the property -- not just for the sake of investment companies, but for the sake of the mums and dads of England who had put their pension money into those institutions. Everyone teaches everyone else."

Lend Lease was put to the test just a few months into the project. The challenge: Would an established retailer sign on to the risky concept of building a massive shopping mall in one of the most depressed regions in England? John Lewis Partnership, a large retailer that calls itself "Britain's most successful employee-owned business," had rejected the original Bluewater plan out of hand. When Stuart Hornery paid a visit to the department store's chairman, he took with him a set of 10 promises -- a whittling-down of the Bluewater dream that came to be known as the "10 Commandments." These included everything from "the finest retail mix in the United Kingdom" to "the restoration of the greenbelt" to a "partnership with local authorities and community" to "the integration of retail and leisure to create a civic sense of place that would become a destination in and of itself." The John Lewis chairman responded with his version of what would become a constant refrain during Bluewater's development: "Impossible. Never been done." He did concede that if Lend Lease could deliver on even half of its promises, John Lewis would sign on.

Less than six months later, not only did John Lewis sign on -- it signed a 99-year lease to become an anchor tenant of Bluewater, and it made plans to partner with Lend Lease on other UK sites. Soon afterward, Marks & Spencer and House of Fraser became the second and third anchor stores of the complex. Ultimately, more than 320 retailers -- including such top global brands as Starbucks, the Gap, Warner Bros., Timberland, Original Levi's Store, and HMV -- signed on as well.

At the same time, the project's top lieutenants, including Hornery and Latham, took their plan to every chamber of commerce, town council, police force, school system, environmental organization, and community group with in Bluewater's 10-million-person region. When asked the inevitable question -- How can we trust you? -- they offered up mayors, school superintendents, and even the Australian Labor Party as references.

The members of the Bluewater team didn't just have to convince outsiders that Lend Lease could deliver: They also had to convince themselves. An all-star cast was tapped to form the Bluewater PCG. It included Hornery, Latham, Kuhne, the CEO of Lend Lease's European business, and the investment director of Prudential (which is Bluewater's biggest investor). It also included a revolving collection of architects, engineers, manufacturers, community advocates, and local planning authorities; experts on construction, retail and finance; and, of course, customers. Every five or six weeks for nearly five years, the Bluewater PCG met to consider budgets, agendas, and proposals for innovation from every perspective.

Starting with its first meeting, the PCG picked apart and pushed for every one of the project's so-called 10 Commandments, which soon evolved into an ever-expanding set of "Bluewater Factors." Those factors included, for example, emphasizing architecture that would tap into the culture and heritage of Kent; creating Bluewater as a "day out" destination rather than as a mere shopping trip; organizing events that would put Bluewater on the "cultural calendar" of Kent; working intimately with each tenant to produce innovation in store design; and starting a cooperative education program that would involve as many as 600,000 students from the region.

"The debates were just legendary," says Kuhne. "The level of investigation was out of this world. Each factor required an inordinate amount of research to confirm what is 'the best' now and what will be the best 5, 10, and 50 years out. Many times during the 5 years of the project, as we hit upon breakthroughs or innovations within the team and in the world at large, we discarded one set of standards and created a new, higher bar for ourselves to clear."