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NEWS - INTERNATIONAL
Marks & Spencer open new flagship store on premier parisian shopping street...
Marks & Spencer Chief Executive, Marc Bolland, was joined by international supermodel Rosie Huntington-Whiteley to officially mark the retailer’s return to France.
Located on Paris’ premier shopping street, Avenue des Champs-Élysées, the new aspirational store will offer customers the very best of M&S’ stylish womenswear and lingerie, as well as a specially chosen selection of food. Trading over three floors, the 1,400sq m store is part of M&S’ ‘bricks & clicks’ strategy, as it returns to the French market with a combined store and e-commerce offer.
Actress and face of M&S’ Autograph brand, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley said: “It’s a pleasure to be part of Marks & Spencer’s much anticipated return to France and I’m proud to be associated with this iconic British brand. Parisians are internationally renowned for their effortless style and the M&S Autograph collection embodies the same chic sense of fashion.”
Duisburg Outlet Village launched
Duisburg Outlet Village was formally launched by the Mayor of Duisburg, Herr Oberbürgermeister Adolf Sauerland in November 2011.
Duisburg Outlet Village is the fl agship development at the heart of a major urban regeneration programme for the City of Duisburg, Germany and is being undertaken by German Development Group in partnership with outlet specialist Freeport Retail.
The site is being sold by the City Authority; the land sale and start of the retail planning process received formal approval from the Council of Duisburg in October 2011. The site forms part of the city centre, and final zoning and construction permits are expected to be granted by March 2012, allowing construction to commence in May 2012. The opening of Duisburg Outlet Village is planned for October 2013, providing 19,000sq m GLA comprising 95 outlets and 1,950 car parking spaces.
Resolution Property acquires stake
Resolution Property, the leading European real estate investor, has acquired an 80 per cent stake in the Supersam shopping centre in Katowice, Poland, as part of a €60M joint venture with Prime Properties Company, which belongs to the Centrum Development and
Investments Group.
The 21,000sq m shopping centre, which is under construction and due to open in 2013, will target retailers operating within the affordable fashion market. Located in the city centre, close to transport links, Supersam will also offer a range of leisure and entertainment facilities, including a Multikino cinema.
Peter Todd, Partner at Resolution Property, said: “Supersam is a significant addition to our growing Polish portfolio, it is a well located development which will attract strong anchor retailers and represents an exciting investment opportunity.”
Kurt Geiger creates Ireland's biggest shoe department
Following the creation of Harrods Shoe Salon, Interior Architects Shed were invited by Kurt Geiger to transform the front of Dublin’s prestigious department store – Arnotts, into a shoe department for the leading fashion brand. The project comes as part of an overall expansion and redevelopment of the store and work is underway with completion due in Spring 2012; The finished project will result in the biggest shoe department in the country, and one that will surely catch the eye.
Shed’s response to the design brief was to develop a retail concept born from the ideaology of gardens, with seasonal (as the products themselves are) and flexible design systems. Ornamental pieces of furniture will be displayed in the various brand areas
which are laid out as individual gardens and large, colourful Rattan and GRP folly’s form the service and seating areas within each subsection. Space is broken up with the use of curved display frames as well as trellis’ which allows for unobstructed views across the whole department.
McArthurGlen's multimillion pound injection in Europe
Europe’s largest developer of designer outlets, McArthurGlen, announced a multimillion pound injection and more than 120,000sq m to expand the Group’s European portfolio – this is their biggest period of concentrated development in recent years. The outlet retailing giant, with more than 20 per cent market share in Europe has seen continual demand from brands for space in their designer outlets, as the concept of outlet retailing gains strength and brands increasingly look to outlet retailing as a core part of
their sales strategy.
This phase of development is already underway, with the opening of the Group’s 21st outlet in Neumünster near Hamburg, Germany; the €120M two-phase scheme is due to open in autumn 2012. Germany is ripe for expansion and a key market for McArthurGlen as it has only one tenth of the outlet space of the most mature outlet market, the UK, which has 10sq m of outlet space per thousand population.
McArthurGlen’s Designer Outlet near Hamburg will offer around 100 stores in 20,000sq m of Gross Leasable Area [GLA], with a further 6,000sq m due to open in a second phase.
In addition, two new Designer Outlets in France are in the planning stage and McArthurGlen is also developing expansions to six of its existing Designer Outlets across Europe including Veneto, near Venice, to ensure fresh and exciting designer outlets across the portfolio. The Group has also, in June, opened their first designer outlet in Greece, near Athens.
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