GIANT UK electrical retailer, Dixons, is to open its first Irish store at the Jervis Shopping Centre in Dublin. Dixons is understood to be paying a substantial premium to Fosters menswear for a 5,500-square-foot double unit it had booked opposite Debenhams department store. The rent will be around £235,000 per annum.
Dixons arrival in Dublin will heighten competition in the electrical trade - already one of the most intense retail areas. Dixons has several hundred outlets in the UK and three in Northern Ireland. It handles a wide range of electrical goods, computers and video cameras.
Keith Shiells of Lambert Smith Hampton, which acts for Dixons, said it was not the agents' policy to comment on speculation.
Both Jervis Street and Blanchardstown Town Centre are fully let in advance of opening over the next two months. A large proportion of the traders at both centres will be UK multiples, many of them like Dixons coming to Ireland for the first time.
The letting agents for both centres acknowledge that their letting campaigns coincided with the first major uplift in the Dublin retail market for more than five years. It also coincided with a concerted drive by UK multiples to establish successful businesses in Ireland.
Blanchardstown Town Centre opens for business on October 16th; Jervis Street starts trading on November 1st.
In the last round of lettings at Jervis Street, booksellers Waterstone agreed terms to open a new store in a pivotal location, The company, a subsidiary of W. H. Smith, will be paying about £175,000 for a store of 7,500 square feet. It has outlets in Dawson Street and in Cork and Belfast. Another new trader at the centre will be Spoils kitchen reject shop, which will have an anchor unit of 9,500 square feet on two levels. The rent will be about £150,000. Also moving in will be UK multiple Mothercare, which will he paying around £160,000 for 7,800 square feet.
The decisions by the three high-profile companies to opt for the Jervis centre means that all 330,000 square feet are now committed.
Aidan O'Hogan of Hamilton Osborne King said because there were two or three retail developments under way at the same time, it proved attractive to UK multiples who wanted to open a number of outlets after setting up management structures for Irish operations.
Lambert Smith Hampton are joint letting agents on Jervis Street.
Green Property has also managed to let all the retail space in the first phase of the Blanchardstown Town Centre which will have 375,000 square feet. Maurice Green, development director, said there would be 104 traders on board when the centre opens.
