Hailed as a vote of confidence in Brighton’s city centre, Ingka Centres, part of the Ingka Group which also includes IKEA Retail, has bought Brighton’s main shopping centre, Churchill Square, in a transaction first revealed by CoStar News. It is a worthy winner of the South East Impact Award.
IKEA UK and Ireland has confirmed plans to bring a brand new IKEA City store to the site.
Churchill Square has a mix of flagship retail and dining options that has traditionally attracted more than 11 million visitors annually. Retail tenants include Inditex, Apple, Next, H&M, Urban Outfitters and Levi’s alongside a food court with McDonald’s, Krispy Kreme and Ed’s Easy Diner. Ingka Centres has also acquired Chartwell Court, a residential tower block on the site, two attached car parks and a leasehold on a third car park.
The new IKEA City Store will open on the former Debenhams and will mark the latest phase of IKEA’s ongoing investment drive to become more accessible to customers. It will offer a wide array of the brand’s products, with many available for immediate purchase or delivery via zero-emission vehicles.
Ingka Centres intends to adapt the mall's retail offer to community needs and to invest in Churchill Place’s infrastructure to play a part in supporting the local council’s drive to establish a thriving circular economy. Future investments will include improvements to energy efficiency to bring the asset up to BREEAM excellent standards.
Churchill Square is on the main shopping high street of Brighton, and within easy walking distance of Brighton seafront and the main railway station.
The Brighton IKEA store will be the company's third city store in the UK and the only one outside London.
What the Judges Said: “The acquisition of the Churchill Shopping centre by Ingka demonstrated a highly innovative approach to the repositioning of Brighton's main shopping centre. By anchoring with a new Ikea store the acquisition demonstrated that Ingka is willing to look beyond what comprises a traditional town centre retail scheme and to think outside the box when responding to structural changes in the demand for retail space. No longer just replacing like for like (or trying to) Ingka's whole approach demonstrated lateral thought and opens a new type of retail experience to a whole new market sector fuelling demand from complimentary retailers who may not currently be represented on the high streets of the UK and thus creating demand for something completely new rather than just re-hashing what has gone before,” said Jonathan Mannings, founding director, Rare Property Advisors, while Nella Pang, managing director, Omega RE, added: “The city is in need of more ESG-focused occupiers, especially in city centre”.
They Made It Happen: Ross Needham, partner capital markets, Knight Frank; Charlie Barke, partner, head of retail capital markets; Nick Hart, head of strategic transactions – UK capital market, JLL; Neil Lipscomb, regional director, European retail cap markets, JLL.