Shopping Centres:The €500 million Athlone Town Centre, due to open in October, has pulled off another coup by getting two top fashion names to join its tenant line-up, writes Jack Fagan
International fashion giant Zara is to open a store at Athlone Town Centre, a major shopping complex which is due to begin trading on October 18th.
The announcement that the Spanish multiple will have its first outlet in the midlands came in the same week as Next also completed contracts to move into the multi-purpose development.
The arrival of both traders will give a major boost to the new town centre which has already attracted an exceptionally strong line-up of tenants.
Marcus Wren, retail director of Bannon Commercial, says that "precisely 91 per cent of the retail space has now been pre-let four months before the centre is due to open".
The town centre will be a mixed-use development with over 27,870sq m (300,000sq ft) of retail facilities over two levels; a four-star, 163-bedroom hotel; and 148 apartments carrying tax breaks for purchasers.
Wren says that, while most of the large shopping centres opened in recent years frequently overlap with others in neighbouring towns, the Athlone Town Centre "will stand in splendid isolation 75 miles both from Galway and Dublin".
Incidentally, Zara has committed to a third store in Dublin but has not so far opened in Galway where there are two main shopping centres with poor layouts and limited appeal.
Zara will trade out of a store of 1,100sq m (11,840sq ft) alongside a distinctive new civic plaza in Athlone. The potential rent of around €800,000 per annum will be partially based on turnover in line with similar arrangements in many other shopping centres.
Renowned for the speedy delivery of designs from the catwalk to the high street, Zara will be offering high quality fashions at affordable prices for men, women and children.
Mike Shearwood, head of Zara in the UK and Ireland, said they were keen to find a top location in the midlands after the success of their shops in Dublin, Cork and Newbridge.
The Next store of 1,300sq m (13,993sq ft) will face onto three malls and will be the first of their outlets in this country to have the company's new style fit-out. The rent for the store and 500sq m (5,382sq ft) of storage space is likely to be around €800,000 per annum.
With Tesco already owning and trading out of the extremely tired Golden Island shopping centre in Athlone and Dunnes Stores based elsewhere in the town, the developers of the new town centre were lucky to attract Marks & Spencer while it is still on an expansion trail in Ireland. It will have an anchor store of 2,320sq m (24,972sq ft), its 16th outlet in the Republic and 30th across the island of Ireland.
Even before Zara and Next came on board, Athlone had succeeded in attracting an extremely attractive line-up of fashion operators, headed by River Island with 800sq m (8,611sq ft), Monsoon/Accessorize, the French operator Promod (its first store in Ireland), Tommy Hilfiger and Bests Menswear.
With a range of pharmacy groups now chasing virtually every new trading opportunity, there was the usual stampede to get the concession in Athlone. The eventual choice, the Athlone-based McGorisk's Pharmacy, is thought to have paid key money of around €500,000 for the shop which will have to be fitted out at an estimated cost of €1 million. After that, the rent will come to about €600,000 per annum.
The town centre, which is expected to have an end value of €500 million, has been designed to integrate seamlessly with the traditional shopping streets of Athlone.
The design by Murray O'Laoire cleverly knits into the urban fabric of the town.
Some of the striking features will include internal covered streets, a mix of single and double height shops, and natural ventilation through the fully glazed development.
The town centre is being developed by Gallico, a company headed by hotelier John O'Sullivan with partners Jim Keane and Tom Donohoe. The same consortium also developed the successful Manor Mills shopping centre in Maynooth, Co Kildare.
