Hammerson has announced that footfall at Bullring & Grand Central continues to increase year on year with strong visitor numbers continuing through January, reflecting the Group’s focus on its repositioning of the asset.
Overall, footfall at Bullring increased by six per cent in January 2024, compared with a year earlier, reflective of the influx of new store openings (200,000sq ft) and entertainment offers the Group introduced last year. This further endorses the quality of Hammerson’s unique city centre portfolio which is fast evolving into vibrant 24/7 estates, part of the fabric and infrastructure of the city.
High profile additions included Nike, which opened its first-ever ‘Rise’ concept store outside of London at Bullring, Inditex’s Bershka and Pull&Bear, who made their regional debuts. TAG Heuer’s, first ever boutique in Birmingham and M&S’ new 65,000sq ft food-led flagship – now its largest in the Midlands.
Sport and streetwear brand, JD, led a number of important upsizes and expansions, after more than doubling its footprint with a new 27,500sq ft store. This is now its best performing in the region, including Manchester and the West Midlands. Goldsmiths also upsized to a new 8,000sq ft boutique meeting high-demand for jewellery, which continues to be a top performing category across Hammerson’s portfolio.
New leisure and entertainment concepts included boutique bowling operator Lane7, which opened its largest site with significant investment in its new 28,000sq ft flagship space. Adjacent is the new virtual reality experience, Sandbox VR, which launched its 13,000sq ft offering, the first UK location outside of London.
Toby Tait, Director of Asset Management at Hammerson, commented: “It is great to see such a strong start to 2024, following a remarkable 2023 at Bullring & Grand Central, as we continued to deliver on our strategy with new brands, concepts and market firsts. The demand we are seeing for our space reinforces that ‘flight to quality’ and really does reflect the strength of our location and quality of our assets. We have more announcements to come in 2024 as we continue to drive our offer for our Birmingham community.”
