Black Sheep Coffee is the latest operator to sign up for new space at Basingstoke’s Festival Place. The coffee shop chain has signed a 15-year lease on 3,678 sq. ft. at the scheme. The new store will be located on the first floor, in the proximity of Burger King, Lush, and Beaverbrooks. It will open mid-September.
Simon Barrett, Managing Director and Head of Asset Management at AEW, said: “The arrival of Black Sheep Coffee at Festival Place is a great endorsement of the evolution that has taken place at the centre under AEW’s leadership. It reinforces Festival Place’s strategic leasing policy, which aims to increase the F&B provision to complement the traditional retail offer and position the centre as an all-day destination.”
With 25 new leases and lease renewals agreed since the beginning of 2022, Festival Place continues to demonstrate its resilience and relevance as a significant retail and leisure destination. The mall’s leasing activity for H1 2023 has resulted in deals with Entreprise Rent-A-Car, Wenzel’s, and Kushti Comics. Recent leasing activity also includes the provision of free space to the Community Food Link, a Basingstoke charity that collects fresh food and delivers it to those in need, to operate a new delivery Hub.
Having launched in October 2002, Festival Place was acquired by AEW in 2015 and is the highest ranked shopping centre outside a major UK city. It is listed in the top 25 of the latest Global Data’s UK shopping centres report and sits within Trevor Wood Associates’ Premier League of shopping centres. The 1.1 million sq. ft retail and leisure destination features retail, dining and leisure brands such as Apple, H&M, M&S, Next, Waterstones and Five Guys alongside amenities including a Sports Centre with swimming pool and gym, a 10-screen Vue Cinema, a Flip Out trampoline park, Escape and indoor entertainment experience plus office space and a library. Joint agents for Festival Place are Lunson Mitchenall and Cushman & Wakefield. CBRE is the managing agent for the centre
