Joules to join lineup at Festival Place as shopping centre sees continued growth

British fashion and lifestyle brand Joules has signed to open a new store at Festival Place, the 1.1-million-square-foot retail and leisure destination in Basingstoke town centre.

The 3,000-square-foot store will be Joules’ second in Hampshire and will stock the brand’s womenswear, menswear, kidswear and homeware lines.

This latest signing will be joining a growing lineup of fashion brands at Festival Place, including Jack Wills, Fat Face, River Island, Next, Gap, Zara and H&M.

Acquired by real estate investment manager AEW in December 2015, Festival Place is currently ranked 17th in the Global Data Survey for shopping centre destinations and 21st in 2019 by Trevor Wood Associates, making it the highest ranked shopping centre outside a major city.

The fast-growing shopping destination has signed over 80 new tenants since January 2016.

Festival Place benefits from around 1.7 million residents living within a 30-minute drive, as well as 11,500 office workers within a 10-minute walk.

According to CACI research, 24 percent of shoppers now visit the shopping destination more often because the choice of stores has changed and 13 percent visit because of changes to the look-and-feel of the centre.

Additionally, both the amount shoppers are spending and the average retail spend have increased when compared to 2016, before the shopping centre’s refurbishment work began.

Andrea Gray, retail and customer experience director at Joules, said in a statement: “Festival Place will give us a strong platform within Hampshire to reach our existing online customers and to attract new and affluent consumers. Opening in such an innovative and evolving retail destination gives us great confidence moving forward and we very much look forward to welcoming our wonderful customers to the store as well as being part of the increasingly varied line-up at the centre.”

Russell Jewel, head of private equity funds at AEW, said: “Festival Place is continuing to perform extremely well and continues to attract new brands to the destination. Making use of redundant space to diversify the offer has helped us to evolve into a true retail and leisure destination which has been paramount to our ongoing success amidst ongoing troubles within the industry. Illustrating the benefit to our retailers, we’re very proud that more than half our existing tenants have renewed their leases and invested into their stores since we acquired the centre.”

Photo: Festival Place