Columbia Threadneedle Investments has announced that The Food Warehouse will be joining the line-up at Parkgate in Yorkshire, taking a 12,500sqft unit on the park on a 15-year term. Leading affordable dental care provider mydentist will also be joining the scheme signing a 15-year lease for a c.5,000sqft unit.
The announcement comes as Parkgate experiences a notable surge in demand following the recent opening of a link road and free-to-use Park and Ride, both improving accessibility to the 580,000sqft retail destination.
The new store for The Food Warehouse will be a reconfiguration of unit 18 on the northern side of the park adjacent to Morrisons, on a run with Primark and Asda Living.
mydentist, which describes itself as the UK’s leading provider of affordable dental care, is set to open a new dental practice in a state-of-the-art facility at Parkgate. This strategic move is expected to drive increased footfall to the retail park. The deal has received industry-wide acclaim, recognised by the CoStar Awards Quarterly Deals as the top leasing deal in Yorkshire and Humberside.
Alongside these new arrivals, Parkgate has secured a run of recommitments as a trio of big-name tenants, with a collective footprint of more than 40,000sqft, regeared leases in the past three months. Additionally, Asda Living, Boots and River Island have all recommitted to the scheme. This comes on the back of the renewal of Next on their 16,225sqft store at the turn of the year and Superdrug doubling is occupation last Autumn. Wilko also completed a major refit of its c.20,000sqft store, which was one of the first to reopen as part of the brand’s bricks and mortar revival last year.
Mark Kanaris-Sotiriou, senior operations manager at Parkgate said: “Since acquiring Parkgate, we have focused squarely on operational improvement, enhancing the existing strong occupational mix with cherry picked new openings, while completing over 100,000sq t of new leases in the last year alone.
“The exciting opening of Rotherham’s new link road and Park and Ride further affirmed the ease of access to this keystone location for brands’ retail portfolios and made Parkgate even more accessible to a greater catchment area. With the arrival of The Food Warehouse on the horizon, Parkgate’s appeal is only growing as customers seek out convenient, practical and enjoyable retail experiences”.
Kristian Barrett, group retail director at Iceland Foods, said: “We’re hard at work getting everything ready and we can’t wait to open our doors next year.”
The leasing agents for Parkgate are Curson Sowerby Partners and Morgan Williams. The Food Warehouse and mydentist were unrepresented.
