REAL estate investment trust Hammerson has confirmed it is on course to complete its £20 million leisure extension of the Silverburn shopping centre in the first quarter of next year.
However, many of the nine new restaurants could open as early as this autumn.
Among those already signed up to the 10,900 square metre development, where construction started in 2013, are Carluccio's, Cosmo's, Pizza Express, Chimichanga, TGI Friday's and Zizzi. Almost half of the total footprint will be taken up by a 14-screen Cineworld cinema.
Hammerson said the site is 91 per cent let and added: "The majority of the restaurants are due to open in autumn 2014 with the remainder of the scheme open for business in early 2015." It also reiterated projections for £1 million of annual rental from the extension and said it has around £6 million still to spend to complete the construction. Once all the restaurants and the cinema are open they are expected to support hundreds of additional jobs.
At the Abbotsinch Retail Park in Paisley, which Hammerson bought in October 2012, a 5,000 square metre extension opened in June with tenants including kitchen firm Wren, homewares retailer Dunelm, electronics specialist Maplin and sofa business ScS.
In Aberdeen's Union Square, River Island has trebled the size of its store with fellow fashion retailer Fat Face doubling its floorspace in the mall.
Next is spending upwards of £4 million at the Fife Central Retail Park, at Kirkcaldy, to extend its existing site into a superstore with wider clothing, furniture and café offerings.
In the six months to June 30 Hammerson, which includes Birmingham's Bullring and Brent Cross in London in its portfolio, saw net rental income increase 4.6 per cent from £140.4 million to £146.9 million. Rental income was said to have gone up by 1.5 per cent on a like-for-like basis.
There was around £12 million of new rents secured in the period with £7.8 million from UK properties and more than £4 million from operations in France.
Occupancy across the group's sites was at 97.2 per cent. David Atkins, chief executive, said: "The consumer backdrop is improving in the UK and stabilising in France, against which we are providing the space for successful, expanding retailers, allowing us to grow rental values in selected locations. At the same time, global investors are increasingly seeking exposure to the benefits of high-quality retail assets, which has had a beneficial impact on capital values."
The interim dividend was raised by six per cent from 8.3p to 8.8p.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article