Summer success for Midsummer Arcade

Hermes Investment Management, the £33.6 billion manager, and AustralianSuper, joint owners of centre:mk, have announced two new lettings at Midsummer Arcade at centre:mk. Virgin Holidays will be opening a new store, whilst fashion and lifestyle brand Fat Face will upsize. Both will occupy the former River Island store, following the retailer’s upsize to a 20,000 sq ft regional flagship on the Midsummer Arcade. 

Located close to the hotly anticipated Primark store opening in Spring 2019, Virgin Holidays will launch its biggest ever store featuring a virtual reality roller coaster, a bar serving a range of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, a branded children’s play area and a mock aircraft for customers to trial Upper Class and Premium seats. The new 1,700 sq ft store will open in Winter 2018 and will employ eight fulltime staff.

Next door, Fat Face will occupy 2,927 sq ft of ground floor and 1,700 sq ft of first floor space.  The new store will stock Fat Face’s full range of relaxed fashion inspired by the founders’ love of skiing and their favourite black mountain run in Val d’Isère, La Face.

Ed Sellick, on behalf of centre:mk joint owners, Hermes Investment Management and AustralianSuper, commented: “We are very pleased that Virgin Holidays have chosen centre:mk for their latest venture and that two of our biggest fashion brands have chosen to enlarge their stores with us. The popularity of their stores is testament to the centre's large footfall and the affluent and diverse catchment.” 

Dan Buckingham, Head of Retail for Virgin Holidays, added: “Despite news of the doom and gloom on British High Streets, Virgin Holidays is 100% committed to our traditional retail footprint and we couldn’t pick a better and more robust partner than centre:mk. Our stores are designed to bring the holiday experience to life from the moment you book and we’re looking forward to bringing a taste of Barbados, Orlando and Dubai to Milton Keynes.”

This news follows the announcement earlier this year that an upsized Patisserie Valerie and a brand new Yankee candle store have opened at centre:mk.

centre:mk has undergone extensive investment by its joint owners AustralianSuper and Hermes Investment Management, with £60 million of enhancements over the last two years, including the £10 million refurbishment of Sunset Walk, and the award-winning Deer Walk customer experience services that were unveiled to the public last summer.

ENDS

For further information, please contact:

·       Amanda McNally at Aver on 07495 461573, or via amandamcnally@aver.uk.com

·       Yasemin Kiani at Aver on 07932 036085, or via yaseminkiani@aver.uk.com

Notes to Editors:

Hermes Investment Management

Hermes Investment Management, a Federated Investors company, provides world-class active investment management and stewardship services. Hermes, headquartered in London, manages £33.6 billion in assets and offers a broad range of specialist, high-conviction investment strategies spanning listed equities, credit, real estate, infrastructure, private debt and private equity. Hermes’ strategies focus not just on financial results, but also on delivering outcomes beyond performance: holistic returns that consider impacts to society, the environment and the wider world. In Hermes EOS, the company offers one of the industry’s leading engagement resources, representing £330.5 billion of assets. For more information, visit www.hermes-investment.com.

About AustralianSuper

AustralianSuper manages more than AUD$130 billion of members’ assets on behalf of more than two million members from across 270,000 businesses. One in 10 working Australians is a member of AustralianSuper, the nation’s largest industry super fund.