Business booming at the Boulevard
One of Northern Ireland’s top shopping centres has reported strong trading figures for the year despite the covid pandemic.
The Boulevard in Banbridge has seen a 19% hike in both overall turnover and footfall since re-opening in June.
And 39% of sales growth has been in sports and outdoor categories with 43% in homeware.
A spokesman for the Lotus Property group which owns the centre, said there seemed to be a renaissance in outdoor shopping with fresh air, low touch points and space-topped consumers’ shopping wish lists.
The Boulevard welcomed Dune London earlier this month, coinciding with Northern Ireland’s circuit breaker lockdown ending – the third new tenant to arrive at the scheme since retail reopened its doors in June 2020.
The landlords have cited the scheme’s significant open air footprint and investment in social distancing measures with a 90% customer satisfaction score of the overall shopping experience and continued success despite facing the retail industry’s toughest year.
Alastair Coulson, Managing Director at Lotus Property, said: “Despite all its challenges, we are closing 2020 with a phenomenal success story. To have increased turnover and footfall by such a significant amount and welcomed new big brand tenants to the scheme, when high streets across the UK and Ireland have been struggling is testament to the strong retail offering we have, a stepchange in attitudes to out of town shopping and the commitment of our centre management team and tenants to ensuring we provided a safe and comfortable shopping environment for customers.
“Out-of-town shopping has prospered this year and will continue to do so with the right mix of retail, food and beverage and leisure, all of which are key focuses for us at The Boulevard as things slowly come back to normal in the second quarter of 2021. The scheme will also be bolstered by exciting arrivals adjacent to The Boulevard, specifically an M&S Food Hall and The Range as well as the Park & Ride facility of a multi-million-pound Game of Throne tourist attraction, which will increase the scheme’s exposure to new customers, both domestic and international as travel corridors being to open again and we welcome visitors from Europe and America once again.
“It’s set to be an exciting year; not only has the arrival of a vaccine provided much needed hope for getting back to normal but we’re very confident if we can achieve all we have in 2020 during a global pandemic, there is going to be no stopping us in 2021.”