11 January 2013

Topshop Reaches a Pinnacle at Whiteley Shopping Centre

Topshop / Top Man has signed a new lease for a 12,500 sq ft unit at the new 320,000 sq ft Whiteley Shopping Centre in Hampshire, a joint venture development by British Land and Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS).

Lettings exchanged and under offer at the development, which is one of only two new schemes opening in 2013, have now reached 82% by rent. Topshop joins a host of other fashion names including River Island, H&M and Next.

Claire Barber, Head of Shopping Centre Asset Management for British Land, said: "We are seeing very strong demand for space at Whiteley and are delighted with the level of pre-lets with five months still to go until opening.

"The Topshop letting is testament to the quality of the development and the strong pre-let line-up we have secured.  We are confident that we will deliver a scheme that will meet the needs of both retailers and consumers."

Whiteley Shopping Centre will be anchored by a 60,000 sq ft M&S.  Other signed retailers include Clarks, The Entertainer, Mamas and Papas, Schuh, Paperchase, Claire's, Moss, Boots, JD Sports, Bank and Sports Direct.  Cafés and restaurants include Costa Coffee, Frankie & Benny's, Prezzo and Starbucks.  The shopping centre will also provide 1,136 free car parking spaces.

Whiteley benefits from a large and affluent catchment of 1.2 million people with an estimated £3.1 billion potential spend.  The catchment is set to expand further in the foreseeable future with 3,500 new homes at North Whiteley. 

Situated between the two harbour cities of Portsmouth and Southampton and adjacent to an existing Tesco supermarket, the scheme benefits from excellent accessibility via junction nine of the M27.

The letting agents for the scheme are Cushman & Wakefield (retail), Wilkinson Williams (retail) and Davis Coffer Lyons (leisure).

ENDS

Enquiries

British Land
Emma Hammond, FTI Consulting on 020 7269 9347 or emma.hammond@fticonsulting.com

USS
Ceri Edwards, Redwood Consulting on 020 7828 5553 or ceri@redwoodconsulting.co.uk

Notes to Editors:

About USS
USS is one of largest private sector pension funds in the UK with property assets totalling approximately £2.5bn. www.uss.co.uk.

About British Land
British Land is one of Europe's largest Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) with total assets, owned or managed, of £16.3 billion (British Land share £10.4 billion), as valued at 30 September 2012. Through our property and finance expertise we attract experienced partners to create properties and environments which are home to over 1,000 different organisations and visited by over 300 million people each year. Our property portfolio is focused on prime retail locations and Central London offices which attract high quality occupiers committed to long leases. Our occupancy rate of 97.3% and average lease length to first break of 11.1 years are among the highest of the major UK REITs.

Retail assets account for 60% of our portfolio with around 28 million sq ft of retail space across 82 retail parks, 92 superstores, 13 shopping centres and 9 department stores. The retail portfolio is modern, flexible and adaptable to a wide range of formats and our active asset management delivers space which is attractive and meets the needs of both retailers and consumers. 80% of our retail parks have open A1 consent.

London offices, located in the City and West End, comprise 35% of the portfolio (which will rise to an estimated 40% on completion of current developments). Our 7 million sq ft of high quality offices includes Broadgate, the premier City office campus (50% share) and Regent's Place in the West End. Over the last 2 years, we have committed £1.2 billion to create Central London's largest committed office development programme which will deliver 2.3 million sq ft of high quality space by 2014, including a 700,000 sq ft building at 5 Broadgate, the 610,000 sq ft Leadenhall Building in London's insurance district and a 500,000 sq ft mixed office and residential scheme at Regent's Place in the West End.

Managing our environmental, economic and social impacts is central to the way we do business and deliver value for our shareholders. We assess the issues that matter most to us and our stakeholders on an on-going basis and, where appropriate, adjust our strategic focus to reflect this. We focus on managing our buildings efficiently, supporting communities, developing sustainable buildings and engaging our staff. For each of these priorities we are targeting our efforts and resources at initiatives where we can achieve the biggest impacts.

Further details can be found on the British Land website at www.britishland.com.

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