Shoppers of a peculiar kind gathered at the Jervis shopping centre last week—because who wouldn’t want to consider buying a mall instead of just cruising through to buy socks? Up to 13 first-round bids were placed for the Dublin city center gem, which its owners, Paddy McKillen and Padraig Drayne, decided to part with during a particularly quiet few months in the market.
This sale marks a tantalizing moment in retail history, as it’s the first time since the ’90s that anyone other than the original developers—who also happen to be living embodiments of ‘rich’—have had a legitimate shot at owning a shopping centre. You know, because they’ve secretly kept it all to themselves this whole time. It’s like an exclusive club where entry requires either hefty cash or an unfortunate amount of persistence.
Among the bidding frenzy, names like the Comer Group, US property investor Hines, and Patron Capital made a cameo, while Peter Horgan’s Lugus Capital showed up, presumably wearing shades, along with David Goddard’s Lanthorn—because real estate investment is obviously a glamorous affair. These are the wannabe mall moguls battling it out for a piece of the lucrative retail pie, right after a frantic round of strong bidding for Marlet’s delightful trio of retail parks. Nothing says exciting like three retail parks vying for your attention, am I right?
For more than a year, the retail sector has been the unlikely Queen Bee of the property investment market, inviting oodles of capital while other sectors just sulk in the corner, nursing their losses from the COVID crisis. Yes, while people were predicting the imminent demise of brick-and-mortar shopping, it turns out their instruments for cash-flow forecasting may have been faulty. Go figure!
As retail sizzles back into the spotlight, in-store spending by consumers, according to AIB’s latest retail report, rose by 2 percent compared to the previous year. This follows a similarly encouraging uptick last quarter, signaling that perhaps people are warming back up to the idea of—gasp—shopping in physical stores. Or maybe it’s just that getting out of sweatpants is an adventure on its own.
In a delightful twist of fate, seven out of ten consumers now prefer the tangible experience of shopping in stores rather than scrolling mindlessly through their online carts. Jean McCabe, chief executive of Retail Excellence Ireland, claims that customers are returning for the “customer experience”—or maybe just to snag a complimentary shopping bag that isn’t a crumpled piece of plastic from Amazon.
Even BPerfect Cosmetics, who once tried their luck selling exclusively online, has opened 13 physical stores. They tested the waters with pop-up shops and discovered it’s easier to get people to buy makeup than it is to convince them that an online-only shopping experience is just as fabulous. Their CEO, Brendan McDowell, happily noted how the empty units in shopping centers became prime real estate for negotiating better deals. It’s almost as if the market was rolling out a red carpet for anyone interested in setting up shop.
And so, the plot thickens. The Jervis shopping centre bidding war reflects not just the resilience of retail but the odd spectacle of landlords fighting for an asset in a market where even the mere idea of a shopping mall doesn’t send shivers down the spine anymore. These bidders evidently see retail parks as the spa hotels of the investment world—prized, pampered, and yearning for a full-house season.
Thus, as fortunes swirl around retail locations, the future seems bright—not just for high-profile bidding wars or revitalizing shopping malls, but for the brave souls willing to convert retail units into exclusive hangouts for customers with good taste, or at least a mark of desperation to find decent parking. Welcome to the modern-day retail renaissance—where the shopping centre is back, and the only question that remains is, who will come out on top with the key to the shopping kingdom?
