Swedish furniture giant IKEA is in talks to buy the Churchill Square shopping centre in Brighton from Abrdn's Aberdeen Standard Property Unit Trust for a price understood to be around £175 million.
Knight Frank came to market with the mall earlier this year. The shopping centre was developed by Standard Life Investments at a cost of £90 million in October 1998 and is in the heart of Brighton.
The mall is a rare 100%-owned freehold top 20 UK shopping centre to come to market. CoStar understands there was competitive bidding at around £175 million with multiple parties pursuing the asset. That is an encouraging sign for the market after a number of other large shopping centres have recently struggled to sell.
There is around 520,000 square feet of retail and leisure and on-site parking for 1,600 cars.
Occupiers include Zara, Urban Outfitters, Apple, Pandora, Next, Bershka and Victoria's Secret.
Ingka Centres, which is part of the IKEA retail and Ingka Investments family, has been buying shopping centres to create urban meeting places in recent years, including smaller IKEA stores as well as local start-ups, pop-ups and food outlets run by local entrepreneurs. The developments are seen by the Swedish flatpack furniture giant as a global template for its response to dramatic shifts in retail trends.
Two years ago it announced an £170 million investment buying and developing the Kings Mall shopping centre on Hammersmith's main high street in its first so-called "urban meeting place", with a second downtown development then underway in San Francisco.
The mall was rebranded as Livat, which means "a lively gathering" in Swedish. Ingka says this reflects its aspiration to offer fresh ways for communities to meet and find "new ways to shop, to eat, to work and have fun exploring everything a vibrant local area has to offer". The interior design is inspired by Ingka Centres’ Scandinavian roots and there are additional spaces for relaxing and socialising, with a new atrium.
Ingka Centres’ proposed €5 billion global expansion has included the opening of four new meeting places in China, as well as plans for India. Last year it bought the former Topshop block on London's Oxford Street for a flagship redevelopment.