Boots to enter Irish market with five stores costing £7.6m

UK PHARMACY chain Boots is to open five new stores in the Dublin area as part of an expansion plan which will eventually include other main cities.

The first five outlets will involve an investment of £7.6 million. Boots flagship store will be located at the Jervis Centre, which is to open for business on November 1st.

Next spring, the company will open new stores at The Square in Tallaght and at Bloomfields shopping centre in Dun Laoghaire. Negotiations are also under way to acquire outlets in Blanchardstown Town Centre and the proposed shopping centre at Quarryvale.

Mr Peter Burdon, director of business development, said yesterday the company was delighted to invest in Ireland at a time when both the economy and the health and beauty market was going through "a phenomenal growth phase".

The company plans to employ a staff of 400 in the five stores, about 150 of them in the Jervis Centre. Boots will be paying a rent of around £450,000 for almost 16,000 square feet of retail space on two levels - ground floor and mezzanine. It will also have an additional 7,000 square feet of storage space.

Boots is expected to prove a major attraction in the Jervis Centre, where the promoters have lined up an exceptionally strong list of UK tenants including Debenhams and Marks & Spencer.