Work has started on a €50m (£39m) plan to enlarge one of Ireland’s most successful fashion hotspots — which already lists actress Elizabeth Hurley, model Suki Waterhouse and American socialite Olivia Palermo among its regular celebrity shoppers.
Kildare Village, close to the M7 motorway in County Kildare, opened in 2006 and attracts almost two-and-a-half million visitors a year. Operated by Value Retail it is one of the nine Chic Outlet Shopping villages located close to Europe’s gateway cities of London, Milan, Munich, Dublin, Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Brussels, Antwerp, Cologne, Düsseldorf and Frankfurt.
On the back of consistent year on year growth the Irish luxury retail complex is set to get a second phase expansion that will add 36 new boutiques of international brands, bringing the number of employees at the village to more than 1,000 across 100 stores.
The Kildare Village contract — which will add an additional 60,000sq ft to the outlet site, increasing its total size to 178,000sq ft — has been awarded to Collen Construction and will see the creation of 120 construction jobs. It also includes two restaurants and a visitor centre, as well as 437 new parking spaces.
Value Retail claims to be the only company in Europe to specialise exclusively in the development and operation of luxury outlet shopping destinations. Before the Kildare Village expnasion, Its nine sites were home to more than 1,000 boutiques and fashion retailers.
The concept of selling season-old clothes, accessories and lifestyle goods all year round at 60 per cent has proved a winner for both Value Retail and its customers. Among its regular branded outlets are Ralph Lauren, Anya Hindmarch, Barbour, Church’s, Louise Kennedy, Wolford, Furla, N Peal, Molton Brown and Lulu Guinness.
Not surprisingly, it’s a retail philosophy is proving popular in China as well as Europe. Value Retail has already opened Suzhou Village — located 50 miles west of Shanghai, on the Yang Cheng Lake Peninsula in historic Suzhou — offering 600,000sq ft of retail space.
Its second venture, Shanghai Village, is in partnership with the Shanghai Shendi Group, the lead developer of the Shanghai International Tourism and Resorts Zone, which will include the Shanghai Disney Resort and the adjacent Shanghai Village. Phase one of the 540,000sq ft retail complex is scheduled to open at the end of 2015 to coincide with the launch of the Disney resort.
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