Green Property is to create a new fashion mall in its retail park beside Blanchardstown Town Centre after losing two major tenants to the rival Westend fashion complex in the same area of Dublin 15. Jack Fagan reports
Green's unexpected decision to devote a new extension of its retail park entirely to fashion comes on the heels of an announcement by the Cosgrave Group that it is converting the four-year-old Westend Retail Park into a fashion complex.
The move has encouraged one of the leading multiples, Next, to relocate from the main shopping centre to Westend where it will have about three times as much selling space for roughly the same rent.
This week, the giant Arcadia Group also dropped a bombshell when it indicated that it, too, plans to trade out of one of the former retail warehouses in Westend which will have a floor area of 1,533 sq m (16,500 sq ft).
Three of its brands - Burtons Menswear, Wallis and Evans - will be opening in Westend. Arcadia has not yet said whether it plans to sell off its lease in the shopping centre or to continue trading there with its Top Shop and Tom Man labels.
Arcadia is understood to have agreed a rent of €400,000 for Westend though the Cosgrave Group will be making a contribution of around €1.5 million towards the cost of converting the retail warehouse and installing a mezzanine level.
Bernadine Hogan of Hamilton Osborne King, which is handling the new-style Westend park, described Arcadia's decision to open in the park as "a major coup" as it would broaden the range of fashions available. Several other international names were also willing to sign up for the park, she said, which is to be turned into "an innovative and quirky retail street".
To cater for Next, Cosgraves is developing a new building of 3,716 sq m (40,000 sq ft) on two main levels with the option of putting in a mezzanine with a further 1,858 sq m (20,000 sq ft). Next will be paying a rent of around €431 per sq m (€40 per sq ft). Next's decision to relocate clearly left Green Property Company reeling, just as it was wrapping up its successful letting programme for its new Red Mall retail extension in the shopping centre.
Experts in the property market have always been perplexed as to why Green did not originally buy the Westend site, considering that it owns virtually everything else in the area and has spent a fortune creating one of the largest shopping areas in the country.
Cosgraves has been a major beneficiary of the superb infrastructure put in by Green.
Cosgrave's early success in attracting some of the big names into Westend has now prompted Green to devote a planned extension of its retail warehouse park entirely to fashion rather than the usual bulky goods retailers. Construction is due to begin early in the new year on a 9,290 sq m (100,000 sq ft) extension to the retail park which will be located close to the shopping centre.
In the meantime, Cosgraves has already bought in several of the other leases in Westend with the intention of replacing the present retail warehouses with a a strong mixture of fashion retailers.
Most of these are likely to be leading multiples looking for substantially more space at a considerable discount to the going rent in the shopping centre. Westend, like the other retail warehousing in Blanchardstown, is considerably more accessible because of the availability of good car-parking outside the front door.
The major changes taking place at Blanchardstown come only months before the opening of Dundrum Town Centre, which has lined up what is easily the most interesting mixture of fashion retailers ever assembled in this country.
