A new 18,000 sq.ft Treetop Adventure Golf, complementing the existing retail offer at Highcross with more family orientated activities, launched in June, with the independent Indian street food brand Tamatanga opening its doors in July.
Our design for the £10 million refurbishment has previously attracted such high street big hitters as Zara and JD Sports. Already existing tenants at the centre, Zara have moved into a 30,000 sq.ft flagship store and a full-line JD Sports have doubled the size of their space by taking an extended 20,000 sq.ft unit.
Darren Hodgson, Associate Director says: “With such challenging times on the UK high street, retailers are extremely exacting in the location and configuration of the units they rent. We were able to apply our expertise in retail developments to reconfigure an old-fashioned, department store-centric layout into new units suitable for modern retailers. Lower and upper ground floors are now the key retail areas, with other spaces attracting alternative tenants, such as indoor golf, or even being converted into car parking; all to make the whole visitor experience more attractive to customers.”
We developed and delivered a scheme which sub-divided and reconfigured the three storeys that made up the former House of Fraser department store within the Highcross shopping centre. Our design created new retail, leisure and food and beverage offers for the centre, in addition to converting part of the upper retail levels into additional car parking, extending the existing roof top car park and providing an extra 130 spaces.
Darren concludes: “This is our first delivered scheme to date for Hammerson, and it gave the Highcross centre a renewed presence on Leicester’s high street and strengthened the developing human connectivity of the city centre. Our design re-imagined the internal layout to not only maximise the useable floorspace but create units that appealed to the changing needs of the hard-pressed high street retailer.”
You can read more about this project in our portfolio.
