Boots and Argos take stores in Athlone

LEADING UK multiples Boots and Argos are moving ahead with plans to open outlets in major urban centres in the provinces. Both companies have agreed terms for large stores at a new shopping centre which is to open next October in Athlone. Boots will have a 6,000-square-foot shop and Argos will have 8,000 square feet at a rent of around £15 per square foot. Formal contracts have yet to be completed.

Meanwhile, Easons has paid about £840,000 for a 6,000-square-foot shop, which will be one of the anchors in the Golden Island Shopping Centre, a £25 million development which secured tax designation the day before the Fianna Fail/Labour coalition left office. The other anchors will be Quinnsworth, which bought a 35,000-square-foot supermarket for £3.5 million, and its sister company Penneys, which paid about £2.5 million for a 20,000-square-foot unit. Of the 40 unit shops opening, all but seven of them have already been let by agents Harrington Bannon. Rents are about £35 per square foot.

The opening of the new centre will also lead to an upgrading of Athlone's existing shopping centre, which is only 300 yards away and has been trading for 21 years. A Dublin property company, Duke House, which bought the centre last year, is to spend over £1 million on refurbishing it and providing a new facade. Quinnsworth has yet to decide what use to make of its 35,000-square-foot supermarket, for which it pays a rent of over £100,000 under a lease which has anther 12 years to run.

Meanwhile Duke House is also to upgrade and extend the Janelle Shopping Centre in Finglas, Dublin, which it also bought last year along with Dundalk Shopping Centre. The former Buy Right store operated by Ben and Mary Dunne is to be extended to accommodate another anchor tenant with 25,000 square feet. Duke House is also to seek planning permission for 13 retail warehouses with a total floor area of 46,000 square feet on part of the 13 acres of grounds behind Janelle.