Life Style Sports plans Grafton Street flagship in amalgamated buildings

The Irish retailer Life Style Sports is to open a flagship store in two newly amalgamated buildings at 57/58 Grafton Street, Dublin 2. The letting will mean that the high street will once again be trading at full occupancy after a few difficult years marked by a fall off in consumer spending and controversy over high rents.

Life Style has taken a long term lease of the newly amalgamated buildings at a rent of around €675,000 per annum. The buildings have a floor area of 1,345sq m (14,482sq ft), with a trading area of 324.2sq m (3,684sq ft) on the ground floor and 410sq m (4,413sq ft) at first floor level.

The new shop replaces Zerup and a temporary golf shop (it previously traded as Richard Alan) which closed earlier this year to allow the National Assets Management Agency to fund the merging of the two buildings. Both were part of a larger retail portfolio bought during the boom by developer Bernard McNamara who had planned to create a new street running from Grafton Street back to South William Street and Drury Street-a novel plan that had a lot of merit. He also acquired a number of other retail buildings in the area which were subsequently sold by a receiver at a fraction of their original price.

McNamara is thought to have spent around €25 million alone on acquiring the two Grafton Street shops. Once Life Style moves in and starts trading, it is thought likely that receiver FGS will offer numbers 57/58 for sale as a single investment.

Investment funds which own buildings on the street will be hoping that the opening of the newly enlarged store will prompt other owners on the street to amalgamate and redevelop their buildings in the future. Grafton Street’s fortunes have been damaged in recent years by the proliferation of small outlets which are being increasingly let at rents below the going rate because of inadequate floor areas.

Darragh Cronin of Savills, who handled the Life Style letting, said the principal issue on Grafton Street was that the shortage of larger stores meant that many multinational brands were unable to find the right property on the street. An increase in unit reconfigurations and amalgamations would be required to provide adequate retail footprints to satisfy demand.

Meanwhile, Savills has also let number 23 Grafton Street to Claire's Accessories on a newly-negotiated lease. The unit was previously occupied by men's clothing group Dalveys. Claire's is to begin trading in December when it will have the use of just over 100sq m (1,079sq ft) on the ground floor and storage space overhead. The company is to pay a rent of around €220,000 under a long lease.