Upmarket supermarket Waitrose has secured sites for three new stores in a series of deals brokered by King Sturge.
The three new stores for the food retailer, which is part of the John Lewis group, will be Sutton Coldfield, Shrewsbury and Cardiff.
The first of the new stores acquired by King Sturge was Sutton Coldfield which is located at SU2 The Parade and Waitrose is now fitting out the site with a view to opening the store, which totals more than 5,000 sq ft, this month.
Waitrose has taken a new 15-year lease on the store from the landlord, a client of Orchard Street Investment Management for whom DTZ acted. The supermarket will be directly opposite the new H&M store which is due to open in the old Woolworth’s unit at Easter.
In Shrewsbury, Waitrose will open a new convenience store in May at 27 Pride Hill/23 St Mary’s Street, bringing together two units which were previously occupied by the Post Office and Burger King.
The end result will provide a store with ground floor sales of 3,629 sq ft and a basement area of 3,057 sq ft. Landlord Carlton Holdings, via Regal Asset Management, agreed a new 15-year lease with Waitrose. Jackson Criss acted for Carlton.
The Cardiff store will open on 28 April in the pedestrianised prime pitch of Queen Street. Waitrose is taking a new 15-year lease of Unit 4 Queen’s West, 15 Queen Street, a store previously occupied by USC which has relocated to St David’s 2 shopping centre. The new supermarket will provide 3,300 sq ft of ground floor sales and two upper floors of ancillary space, totalling 3,912 sq ft.
Landlord Co-Operative Insurance Society, managed by AXA Real Estate, was advised by local property agent Calan.
The leases agreed on all three deals include a tenant break clause at the end of the tenth year. No rental details are being disclosed.
Tom Keys-Toyer, retail partner at King Sturge, said: “This trio of new stores for Waitrose demonstrates that the supermarket chain is now making real headway in its convenience store opening programme.
“The new Cardiff store is particularly significant, giving Waitrose a strategically important location in the principality’s capital. But the Sutton Coldfield and Shrewsbury sites also provide it with highly competitive pitches and a strong footing in key West Midlands towns.”
This year, Waitrose is seeking to open at least 10 new stores in the northern region and a similar number in both London and across the south. Its ultimate aim is to open 300 convenience stores by 2020.
Elsewhere King Sturge has been appointed by regeneration specialist St Modwen to revalue their entire property portfolio for insurance purposes.
The St Modwen property portfolio encompasses approximately 80 commercial and industrial sites across the UK including 18 town centre shopping schemes, with a total value in excess of £1 billion.
Andy Higgs, building consultancy partner at King Sturge in Birmingham, said: “This is an important project for our team that will involve inspecting and revaluing all of the properties, according to need over the next five years.
“We will be working closely with the valuation teams and other building consultancy teams from King Sturge nationally in order to complete this project.
“King Sturge’s national presence and our ability to draw on expertise from other specialist teams enable us to provide an all encompassing service for clients with large property portfolios, whether for insurance purposes or as part of a strategic property review.”
