SECTOR FOCUS: RETAIL
Sale brings a boost T
Wakefield, some 65 shopping centre transactions totalling £4.01bn either completed or exchanged in the UK during 2015, of which £876 million was transacted in the fourth quarter of the year. This trend is set to continue in 2016, as there were a number of
Designers of tomorrow (L-R): Beth White and Caroline Raybould (BCU), students Charlotte Strange, Georgina Hadfield, Ross McLeish, Rebecca Shipton, Henna Rana, Roisin Probert, and Matt Lightfoot and Adam Hockney
First-hand experience
Talented fashion students from Birmingham City University are spending a term working with Selfridges Birmingham, as they learn about retail design. The students were given the
opportunity to work with the creative and management team at the iconic Birmingham store to complete their module on visual communication and retail design. The module has been designed
to explore the current shift within retail environments to put the spotlight on the creators who are shaping the future of retail design. The students’ task was to create and present a visual merchandising
strategy based on an innovative concept for Selfridges. They were encouraged to not only put together a development document, but also develop a visualisation of the retail space before pitching this to the general manager of Selfridges Birmingham, Adam Hockney, visual merchandising manager Matt Lightfoot and course tutor Beth White. Beth White said: “Selfridges is
well known for being the vanguard of retail trends and are a very socially aware brand, therefore our collaboration with the Selfridges store in Birmingham was a perfect fit with our module.”
deals under offer at the end of 2015 that are likely to conclude in the first quarter of this year, including Grand Central, which has now been sold for £335m. Others on this list include St Enoch, Glasgow;
Bloomfield, Bangor; Marlowes Shopping Centre, Hemel Hempstead; and Kings Walk, Gloucester. Grand Central is linked to the redeveloped
New Street railway station, and has many stores opening in Birmingham for the first time. Its anchor store is a major branch of the John Lewis chain. Doug Tweedie, associate director in the
Cushman & Wakefield’s Birmingham retail team, said: “2015 proved another strong year in the shopping centre investment market and the Midlands saw a significant amount of activity with a dozen schemes changing hands, with a combined value of £752.99m, or almost a fifth of all transactions by value. 2016 is already off to a strong start with the sale of Grand Central to Hammerson, and the recent launch of Kings Walk in Gloucester and Parkgate in Shirley. “What is most evident is the broad range of buyers coming to the
region, with institutional money accounting for only one of those purchases, with the rest coming from overseas, through niche investment managers.”
he sale of Birmingham’s newly-opened Grand Central shopping centre to London-based Hammerson will help the Midlands get off to a flying start in the retail investment market.
According to research from leading real estate company Cushman &
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MARCH 2016 CHAMBERLINK 53
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