Lettings Success for Historic Nottingham Shopping Centre
The Exchange, Nottingham’s exclusive shopping venue situated in the heart of the city centre, has announced a further two exciting additions to its tenant line up.
Following the successful opening in autumn last year of the prestigious café brand Patisserie Valerie, which brought an upmarket café ingredient to The Exchange; two further new retailers have joined the roster of existing brands.
Just before Christmas, iconic British shoe and boot retailer Dr Martens opened its first Nottingham standalone store in a unit of 1,823 sq ft on Smithy Row. In addition to its renowned footwear offer, the new store in The Exchange also stocks a wide range of clothing and accessories.
The high class art retailer, Castle Galleries, is also in the process of fitting-out a new 2,576 sq ft fine art showroom in the heart of the scheme, under its exclusive fine art brand, Castle Fine Art, creating a prestigious flagship gallery.
These new lettings demonstrate the continuing strength of demand amongst retailers for prime retail space in the city, and are in sharp contrast to conclusions contained in a recent disputed report by the Local Data Company which suggested there had been an increase in vacant shop space in Nottingham over the past 12 months from 23.1% to 30.6%.
Claire Carrier, Associate Partner at Tim Harries & Partners, who represent the owners of The Exchange through asset managers, CBRE Global Investors, commented: “We are delighted to welcome two new high profile brands to The Exchange at what is an exciting time for Nottingham’s most exclusive shopping centre. The Exchange continues to provide a high quality location for new premium retailers seeking representation in the city, and despite recent negative press towards shopping in Nottingham; it is encouraging to see that the city continues to provide an enviable retail shopping experience which can only improve with further development in the pipeline”.
The letting to Dr Martens was negotiated by Ben Tebbutt, Director in the Retail & Leisure team at Nottingham property consultancy FHP, and the letting to Castle Fine Art was negotiated by Claire Carrier of Tim Harries & Partners.
The Exchange Centre Manager, Neil Fincham added,
“Vacancies in a centre put the client between a rock and a hard place with both the loss of rental income, and the requirement to make up Service Charge. As Centre Manager I’m acutely aware of my vacancies, not least because of the impact they have on customers’ perceptions of my centre. Attracting new tenants in these straitened times isn’t easy, which means new openings are particularly notable.
To gain three tenants in three months, all of whom complement The Exchange’s offer perfectly is a truly exceptional achievement, and opens up all sorts of opportunities for The Exchange in the future.”
The lettings fly in the face of recent negative publicity about retail vacancies in the city, which quoted exaggerated and entirely erroneous statistics on retail vacancies in the city centre. Latest figures released by Springboard, show a 4% increase in footfall for Nottingham city centre for the whole month of December compared to the same period last year. This contrasts with the equivalent figures for the East Midlands which show a 1.2% decline and for all towns and cities which are also down.
It’s a similar picture for November with Nottingham faring better than elsewhere, experiencing an increase of 8.75% for November compared to 2011.
Mr Fincham is also a director of the Nottingham Business Improvement District (BID) and commented, “This is a clear indication that more visitors came to Nottingham to enjoy the full retail and leisure experiences that the city had to offer over the Christmas period, and contrasts with the growth of online shopping which threatened to reduce the number of people frequenting the High Street.
The Exchange, Nottingham’s exclusive shopping venue situated in the heart of the city centre, has announced a further two exciting additions to its tenant line up.
Following the successful opening in autumn last year of the prestigious café brand Patisserie Valerie, which brought an upmarket café ingredient to The Exchange; two further new retailers have joined the roster of existing brands.
Just before Christmas, iconic British shoe and boot retailer Dr Martens opened its first Nottingham standalone store in a unit of 1,823 sq ft on Smithy Row. In addition to its renowned footwear offer, the new store in The Exchange also stocks a wide range of clothing and accessories.
The high class art retailer, Castle Galleries, is also in the process of fitting-out a new 2,576 sq ft fine art showroom in the heart of the scheme, under its exclusive fine art brand, Castle Fine Art, creating a prestigious flagship gallery.
These new lettings demonstrate the continuing strength of demand amongst retailers for prime retail space in the city, and are in sharp contrast to conclusions contained in a recent disputed report by the Local Data Company which suggested there had been an increase in vacant shop space in Nottingham over the past 12 months from 23.1% to 30.6%.
Claire Carrier, Associate Partner at Tim Harries & Partners, who represent the owners of The Exchange through asset managers, CBRE Global Investors, commented: “We are delighted to welcome two new high profile brands to The Exchange at what is an exciting time for Nottingham’s most exclusive shopping centre. The Exchange continues to provide a high quality location for new premium retailers seeking representation in the city, and despite recent negative press towards shopping in Nottingham; it is encouraging to see that the city continues to provide an enviable retail shopping experience which can only improve with further development in the pipeline”.
The letting to Dr Martens was negotiated by Ben Tebbutt, Director in the Retail & Leisure team at Nottingham property consultancy FHP, and the letting to Castle Fine Art was negotiated by Claire Carrier of Tim Harries & Partners.
The Exchange Centre Manager, Neil Fincham added,
“Vacancies in a centre put the client between a rock and a hard place with both the loss of rental income, and the requirement to make up Service Charge. As Centre Manager I’m acutely aware of my vacancies, not least because of the impact they have on customers’ perceptions of my centre. Attracting new tenants in these straitened times isn’t easy, which means new openings are particularly notable.
To gain three tenants in three months, all of whom complement The Exchange’s offer perfectly is a truly exceptional achievement, and opens up all sorts of opportunities for The Exchange in the future.”
The lettings fly in the face of recent negative publicity about retail vacancies in the city, which quoted exaggerated and entirely erroneous statistics on retail vacancies in the city centre. Latest figures released by Springboard, show a 4% increase in footfall for Nottingham city centre for the whole month of December compared to the same period last year. This contrasts with the equivalent figures for the East Midlands which show a 1.2% decline and for all towns and cities which are also down.
It’s a similar picture for November with Nottingham faring better than elsewhere, experiencing an increase of 8.75% for November compared to 2011.
Mr Fincham is also a director of the Nottingham Business Improvement District (BID) and commented, “This is a clear indication that more visitors came to Nottingham to enjoy the full retail and leisure experiences that the city had to offer over the Christmas period, and contrasts with the growth of online shopping which threatened to reduce the number of people frequenting the High Street.