City Centre Retail The decision by Marks & Spencer to seek a top name tenant for a new store at the former Grafton Arcade will give the city's premier street a badly needed boost, writes Jack Fagan
Dublin's Grafton Street is to get a badly needed boost with the decision by Marks & Spencer to seek a top name tenant for a major new store which it is to develop on the site of the former Grafton Arcade.
The new outlet will have 1,858sq m (20,000sq ft) of retail space at basement, ground and first floor levels and is likely to attract a rent of at least €2.5 million.
The store, which will be located along what is easily the busiest stretch of Grafton Street, will attract interest from a range of high profile traders because of the scarcity of shops with large floor plates.
Those interested are likely to be led by Boots, which trades at a serious disadvantage next door because of the limited floor space in the former Hayes Cunningham Robinson chemist outlet.
Others likely to consider the venue are Zara, H&M, Next (it also has restricted space in its Grafton Street store), TK Maxx, Easons and Penneys. The Arcadia Group is unlikely to chase the store after opening recently in the extensive Habitat building on St Stephen's Green.
Aidan O'Hogan of Hamilton Osborne King, who acquired about 15 different leases in the Grafton Arcade for Marks & Spencer, is known to have been in contact with some of the high profile traders that have been shortlisted for the new store. Although the marketing of the outlet has already begun, the store is not expected to be ready for fit-out for the best part of a year because of the extensive remodelling programme planned for the site which opens on to Duke Lane at the rear. The new layout is expected to include a back entrance along Duke Lane.
Marks & Spencer bought the Grafton Arcade from Guardian Royal Exchange in the early 1990s for about £20 million (€25.4 million) and spent the last five years buying-in the various leases. The last three of these, held by Golden Discs, cost around €7 million. At one stage Grafton Street had three separate arcades but they gradually went out of fashion as traders looked for larger stores.
The dominance of small, but valuable, outlets on Grafton Street has led to many tacky shops opening there in recent years. Much of the criticism has focused on the large number of phone shops and fashion outlets which have no difficulty in paying high rents.
The slippage in the street has encouraged Dublin City Council to promote site assembly to create several new large stores, such as the one to be built in the Grafton Arcade. With values on the street continuously soaring, site assembly is likely to be slow and to take at least five to 10 years to complete. Even when values were in a different league, it took no less than 15 years to assemble the site for the St Stephen's Green shopping centre.
