A major British department store, John Lewis, will be the anchor tenant of a mixed-use development planned for Dublin city centre writes JACK FAGAN.
JOHN LEWIS, one of Britain's biggest department store groups, is to open a major outlet in the centre of Dublin. It will anchor the Dublin city centre mixed use development planned for a 5.5-acre site around the former Carlton cinema on Upper OConnell Street.
The flagship store of 23,225sq m (250,000sq ft) will trade behind the art deco façade of the Carlton which is to be moved 50 metres further up the street to allow a public square to open on the cinema site.
The decision by John Lewis to opt for the €1.2 billion north inner city scheme will be seen as a strong endorsement for the project which is awaiting planning permission from Dublin City Council.
It is also a major coup for developer Joe O'Reilly of Chartered Land as most other large shopping centres in the Dublin area have targeted the UK multiple in the past without success.
Should the UK group choose to open a second store in Dublin, O'Reilly will be in a strong position to persuade it to settle for future phases of either the Dundrum Town Centre or the Pavilions in Swords which he is also involved in.
John Lewis may have been offered attractive incentives to anchor Dublin Central but when the full rent kicks in for its four levels of retailing it is likely to be between €6.5 million and €7 million per annum.
With about 100 other shops also due to open in the scheme, there is likely to be intense competition to trade alongside the hugely successful department store. Foodies will be hoping that it will also bring in its sister company, Waitrose supermarket.
Dublin is one of 10 new stores planned by John Lewis, taking the total up to 36. Waitrose has 188 stores and is also poised to expand further.
The arrival of John Lewis to coincide with completion of both Dublin Central and Arnotts Northern Quarter redevelopments should greatly strengthen the appeal of the north inner city and Henry Street in particular at the expense of Grafton Street.
The Henry Street area is already doing considerably better since the arrival of Zara and HM. Dublin Central will incorporate new streets and squares, more than 100 apartments and a sloping public park at roof level with panoramic views over the city.
Seventeen restaurants will occupy space at the upper tier of the shopping centre under a transparent "rainscreen" roof.
These are heady times for the John Lewis Partnership, the employee-owned UK group that is leaving much of the high street floundering in its wake.
The Times of London reports that legions of loyal shoppers across middle England are flocking to the group's department stores for flatscreen televisions and digital photo frames, and Waitrose is poaching customers from Tesco and wrestling the high quality food crown from Marks Spencer.
The company insists that the cornerstone of its success remains the democratic, profit-sharing partnership model dreamt up by Spedan Lewis in 1920.
The group's 69,000 staff are "partners" and earn a percentage of the annual profits. Of the £380 million pre-tax profit reported by John Lewis for 2007, £181 million went to the workforce in bonuses, equivalent to 20 per cent of their salaries.
John Lewis owns four of its own holiday parks and operates a partnership council, made up of 80 elected employees who can vote an executive out of the boardroom.
