Hammerson’s Bullring & Grand Central ‘flight to quality’ continues with strong start to 2024

Hammerson has announced that footfall at Bullring & Grand Central continues to increase year on year with strong visitor numbers continuing through January, reflecting the Group’s focus on its repositioning of the asset.

Overall, footfall at Bullring has increased by 6 percent in January 2024, compared with a year earlier, reflective of the influx of new store openings (200,000 sq ft) and entertainment offers the Group introduced last year. This further endorses the quality of Hammerson’s unique city centre portfolio which is fast evolving into vibrant 24/7 estates, part of the fabric and infrastructure of the city.

New brands to engage and excite 

High profile additions included Nike, which opened its first-ever ‘Rise’ concept store outside of London at Bullring, Inditex’s Bershka and Pull&Bear, who made their regional debuts. TAG Heuer’s, first ever boutique in Birmingham and M&S’ new 65,000 sq ft food-led flagship – now its largest in the Midlands.

Sport and streetwear brand, JD, led a number of important upsizes and expansions, after more than doubling its footprint with a new 27,500 sq ft store. This is now its best performing in the region, including Manchester and the West Midlands. Goldsmiths also upsized to a new 8,000 sq ft boutique meeting high-demand for jewellery, which continues to be a top performing category across Hammerson’s portfolio.

Expanding the leisure and entertainment offer

New leisure and entertainment concepts included boutique bowling operator Lane7, which opened its largest site with significant investment in its new 28,000 sq ft flagship space. Adjacent is the new virtual reality experience, Sandbox VR, which launched its 13,000 sq ft offering, the first UK location outside of London.

New concepts and market firsts 

In parallel to the outstanding retail and entertainment offer, Hammerson’s placemaking focus created new reasons for customers to visit, in turn driving footfall and stronger levels of engagement across the destination.

Highlights include Late Night Out, which transformed Bullring into a late-night live entertainment venue, featuring celebrity performances, DJs and bars – a market first. A new Club Paradiso Ibiza themed summer pop-up bar and the return of the much-loved B Side Hip Hop Festival and Birmingham Weekender.

Last year, Hammerson also announced the repurposing of the former department store into Drum. Routes of delivery are being explored for this 200,000 sq. ft of new paradigm of city centre workspace, all of which acts to complement Hammerson’s existing Birmingham Estate.

Toby Tait, Director of Asset Management at Hammerson, commented: “It is great to see such a strong start to 2024, following a remarkable 2023 at Bullring & Grand Central, as we continued to deliver on our strategy with new brands, concepts and market firsts. The demand we are seeing for our space reinforces that ‘flight to quality’ and really does reflect the strength of our location and quality of our assets. We have more announcements to come in 2024 as we continue to drive our offer for our Birmingham community.

We will continue to create fantastic experiences for our customers and diversify our offering. In the first half of the year, we will welcome TOCA Social, a new immersive footfall brand which will animate and add vibrancy to Bullring, whilst we will also strengthen our food and beverage offer with new brands including EL&N Café’s regional debut. Last year we created new reasons to visit beyond just shopping and we are already working to deliver some exciting cultural events which tap into the zeitgeist and connect the community in new ways.”