Drive Lounge starts its engines at Norwich’s Castle Quarter

Castle Quarter – Norwich’s social, leisure and lifestyle destination – has secured motorsports gaming concept Drive Lounge for its first location within a city centre scheme.

The virtual driving experience operator has taken unit UU08, located on the ground of Castle Quarter and totalling 1,606 sq ft, on a trial six-month licence. As well as multi-format racing simulators, Drive Lounge will also provide a drinks and snacks offering to gamers between drives.

Drive Lounge is a new virtual motorsports concept, fusing cutting-edge racing similariton with a vibrant bar environment to create entertaining and immersive spaces in which anyone can socialise, play, watch, learn and have fun. It’s first location opened in Manchester in H1 2024.

The arrival of Drive Lounge further strengthens the competitive socialising offer at Castle Quarter, which has repositioned towards innovative social, leisure and lifestyle operators while retaining its traditional retail strength.

Castle Quarter saw visitor numbers surge 9 percent in 2023 compared to the previous year, seven times the increase in Norwich as a whole (+1.2 percent) and more than twice the rates of the East of England region (+3.5 percent) and the UK (+3.1 percent). Following the destination’s repositioning towards leisure and social, footfall, dwell time and car park usage increased in every month in 2023 year-on-year, and at least 75% of occupiers saw higher trading figures compared to 2022.

Will Ashdown, Asset Manager at RivingtonHark, said: “Gaming experiences such as Drive Lounge are at the cutting edge of the competitive socialising and leisure sectors, and as such it is fantastic to see its arrival at Castle Quarter, further expanding the range of entertainment options it has to offers. That this is Drive Lounge’s first in-centre operation highlights the success of the repositioning we have undertaken, putting a greater emphasis on the social, leisure and lifestyle options that offer a new role for city centre destinations.”

Castle Quarter is a unique destination offering visitors a range of social, leisure and lifestyle experiences. Totalling 387,000 sq ft of space and incorporating one of the city centre’s main car parks, with 820 spaces, Castle Quarter offers unrivalled options for people to enjoy themselves.

Roche and Jamieson Mills are the retained agents on Castle Quarter.