TORG International has announced a partnership UK outlet developer Rioja Estates as a next step in its effort to bring outlets to emerging and unsaturated markets .
This positions TORG International and their new partners as one of the largest independent outlet developers in the UK/European market and beyond.
In a first step, two active outlet projects under development by Rioja Estates will be jointly marketed and leased – Malmö Designer Village in Southern Sweden and Grantham Designer Outlet Village in the UK.
Both schemes have planning consent, Grantham is under construction and will open in Autumn 2023, Malmö is planning an opening in Summer 2025.
Grantham Designer Outlet Village is located on the country’s third most travelled motorway, the A1 connecting London with Northern England. With a significant catchment of 3.75 million within 60minutes, it is projected to attract 3.5million visitors annually.
The partnership anticipates the lack of retail competition in the immediate area will enable Grantham Designer Outlet Village to achieve a significantly greater penetration of its catchment than the UK outlet industry average of 3%, namely for Phase One 7.7% and for Phase Two 8.5%.
Says Robert van den Heuvel, partner development and leasing at TORG International, said: “It was at Mapic 2021 that we established this new collaboration with Giles Membrey and his team at Rioja Estates, whom we have known for many years. We were impressed by the quality of their two latest developments in Sweden and the UK and are therefore delighted to be able to share our enthusiasm with the tenant community and industry at large.“
Barbara Horatz, partner marketing and retail at TORG International said: “We feel that both developments meet all the key criteria for a successful future outlet – strategic location on a major motorway axis, important catchment, strong tourism potential, significant size, qualitative and sustainable architecture. There are not many strategic spots left in Europe for outlet developments and we definitely consider Malmö and Grantham as two of them.”
Giles Membrey, managing director at Rioja Estates, added: “We see Malmö and Grantham as the beginning of a great collaboration for our two companies – there are many more opportunities for joint outlet developments that we see ahead of us and that we are already discussing, be it in Europe or in any of the other major markets globally.”
