Trendy US store to set up shop in Temple Bar

One of America's trendiest clothing to soft furnishing retailer is to open its second European store at Temple Bar in Dublin.

Urban Outfitters has completed contracts to lease Cecelia House and a newly completed inter linking building with frontage on to Cecelia Street and Fownes Street.

The company will be paying a staggered rent which will rise to £380,000 after five years. It will have the use of 14,000 sq ft of space, most of it on three levelsin Cecelia House, a period building which once housed the Catholic University School of Medicine. The decision by Urban Outfitters to settle for this location rather than one of the high streets will provide a major boost for Temple Bar, an area where many retail stores have been struggling for years.

However, Temple Bar constantly attracts a huge number of young people.

The consortium which owns both buildings first targeted Urban Outfitting after one of its members visited an outlet in Los Angeles.

Larry Brennan of Hamilton Osborne King said they had been in negotiations with the Manhattan-based company for 13 months "but in the end it was worth waiting for".

A year ago, Urban opened its first European store at Kensington High Street, in London. Visitors to London or to New York, L.A. or San Francisco may be familiar with the store that the Wall Street Journal described as "Gap's evil twin".

In the US, Urban Outfitters is seen a lively, energetic, studenty affair with a mix of new and second-hand clothes for both sexes, books, jewellery, shoes and lots of other merchandise - pieces of furniture, candles, fridge magnets, beaded curtains, glasses cocktail shakers and ashtrays - the sort of place that is heaven for students setting up home.

The idea is that the store is a place in which to hang out, meet people, listen to music and - ideally - not leave empty-handed. Urban Outfitters is marketed as a one-stop shop for 18 to 25-year-olds with labels sourced locally, as well as in the US.

Originally, it was called the Free People's Store and was situated near the University of Pennsylvania. It evolved into Urban Outfitters in 1976.

The hippy-ethos is still part of the store's rough and ready appeal to America. The New York Times has defined the Urban customer as the yubbie (Young Urban Bourgeois Bohemian). The company says that the best way to know your market is to talk to them and listen to their ideas and obsessions.

Urban always has a group of eager "yubbies" on hand to keep the stores' buyers abreast of the times - it employs them.

Everyone from sales assistant to stockroom clerk is encouraged to come forward with ideas and finds, be it a friend at college or a new drink.