Trinity Leeds registered the highest average spend of the Land Securities regional UK portfolio in its first month of opening.
The 1m sq ft centre opened on 21st March and has surpassed all expectations when compared to similar city centres, the REIT said.
Over 2.7m people visited Trinity Leeds in its first 30 days of trading, an average of 100,000 each day. Dwell times are in excess of 96 minutes, boosted by an increased leisure component.
Gerald Jennings, portfolio director for North and Scotland at Land Securities, said: “People are coming in to Leeds in their droves, they are spending money which is critical and they are staying longer than we expected.”
The developer doubled the amount of leisure space within the centre during the course of development from a planned 10% to 24% on opening. Jennings added: “This has not diluted our aspirations for the centre, in fact we had aspirations to let the space at north of £30 per sq ft and have achieved north of £40 per sq ft,” he said.
Hammerson published details of its 1.2m sq ft retail led Victoria Gate development, anchored by John Lewis in Leeds last week. Jennings said: “I’d be reasonably optimistic about having John Lewis….but it is a challenge to find 30 other new retailers [for the scheme] because we live in very difficult economic environment.”
Listen to the podcast below to hear the entire interview with Gerald Jennings. The podcast is also available for download here, or via Estates Gazette’s iTunes channel.
nadia.elghamry@estatesgazette.com
