HUT completes £80 million investment programme

Hercules Unit Trust (HUT), the specialist retail park fund advised by British Land and managed by Schroders has just completed an £80 million investment programme, extending the retail and leisure space across four of its assets by almost 300,000 sq ft, and creating more than a thousand new retail jobs. 

The investment programme includes a £33 million retail extension at HUT’s flagship Glasgow Fort Shopping Park which includes the opening of an 80,000 sq ft full-line M&S store taking the size of the park to over 700,000 sq ft.  Footfall at the park overall increased by over 15% in the first two weeks of the store’s opening, compared to the same period last year. On the further 32,000 sq ft new retail space, Fat Face has completed a 10 year lease for a new 6,000 sq ft unit and Wagamama has completed a 20 year lease for a new 4,000 sq ft unit. Three further units are under offer with only one unit still available to let.

Earlier in the year, HUT completed extensions at three other shopping parks including 64,000 sq ft of new retail space at Deepdale Shopping Park in Preston, a leisure extension of 57,000 sq ft at Fort Kinnaird in Edinburgh and 54,000 sq ft at Broughton Shopping Park in Chester.

Ben Grose, head of retail assets (Scotland and the North), British Land said: “The extensions at Glasgow, Edinburgh, Chester and Preston are further examples of HUT investing in its assets to create locally preferred places where we can add value. The M&S anchor store at Glasgow Fort enables the scheme to cater for an even broader range of consumer journeys and Fat Face and Wagamama are also strong additions to the brand line up.”