High-street stalwart Marks & Spencer's new lease at Bristol's Cabot Circus shopping centre is a huge investment for Bristol and the wider region, according to the judges that awarded it 2025 CoStar Impact Awards Lease of the Year for South West.
The £21 million flagship store is M&S's return to the city centre after a two-year absence, filling a prime 80,000-square-foot space vacated by department store House of Fraser.
The store will generate approximately 150 new roles, strengthening local employment in a region where M&S already supports over 4,000 jobs across 45 stores.
The project is part of a broader £38 million regional push, including a £17 million relocation of M&S’s Bath store, signalling confidence in the South West’s retail sector.
About the project:
The lease reverses M&S’s 2022 withdrawal from the city centre and a local councillor Tony Dyer called it a “strong vote of confidence”.
The three-floor store for food, clothing and beauty, aims to attract higher footfall. Hammerson highlighted M&S’s appeal to "core catchment areas", reinforcing the centre’s status as a regional hub.
The relocation from outdated premises to modern, flexible spaces mirrors successful models in Liverpool and Birmingham.
What the judges said:
"Of all of the occupier deals this year, I think this one is most interesting from Bristol's perspective and reconfirms the city as the regional capital as well as reinvigorating the city centre retail offer after M&S retrenched into the out-of-town retail scheme at Cribbs Causeway post-Covid," said Chris Grazier, head of the Bristol office at Hartnell Taylor Cook
"In an era of declining retail stores and floorplates it is a remarkable achievement to let this major element in Cabot Circus to a nationally well known retailer. Well done on the letting team," said Ytzen van der Werf, the programme leader for MSc Real Estate Finance & Investment at local university UWE Bristol.
Hollie Ruddle, investment director, at Avison Young added: "M&S has not been in occupation within the city centre since the Covid-19 Pandemic. Bristol city centre has lost shopping market share to nearby Cardiff and Bath with no large anchor tenants remaining. This new flagship store is going to have a very positive impact on shopping in the city centre."
They made it happen:
Harry Badham, chief development and asset repositioning officer at Hammerson; Paul O’Brien, director of leasing, commercialisation performance at Hammerson; James Heelis, director, retail at JLL; Matt Maddox, director, retail shopping centre at JLL; Victoria Broadhead, Director at Bruce Gillingham Pollard; Hayley Gisborne, director at Lunson Mitchenall; Charles Jacks, equity director at Lunson Mitchenall; Stephen McMullen, advisory/development at McMullen Real Estate; Lawrence Earnshaw, advisory/development at McMullen Real Estate; David Jones, partner at Eversheds; David Wright, senior associate at Workman LLP; Catherine Wade, surveyor at Hammerson; Tayla Brady, leasing manager at Hammerson; Shelley Taylor, asset manager at Hammerson; Dan Petto, senior project manager at Hammerson; Jonathan Ho, solicitor, Hammerson; Simon Barker, principal associate at Eversheds.
