Primark to open Rushmere flagship as expansion continues

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Mar 11, 2022

Primark is continuing to open new stores in its domestic market with news that it’s to open an anchor store at Rushmere Shopping Centre in Craigavon, Northern Ireland.

The mall, owned by Central Craigavon Limited, will see a major store covering a sales area of 30,800 sq ft with work due to start this summer and the store to open open to customers later this year.

Primark has continued to open new sites in the past two years, despite the challenges of the pandemic, and this has helped the Anglo-Irish retailer continue to post sales rises when stores have been allowed to open.

And while it has no webstore, prolonged periods of closure only seem to have boosted consumer interest in the brand.

Martin Walsh, Rushmere Centre Manager, said Primark has always come up in the firm’s research over the years as “a brand that our customers have been very keen to see”.

That echoes sentiments expressed by other mall operators on the UK mainland.

Rushmere is a strong regional centre between Lurgan and Portadown and comprises 500,000 sq ft of retail and restaurants.  Anchored by Dunnes, Next, Boots, JD Sports, and soon to be Primark, it provides a covered shopping centre of 350,000 sq ft and a retail park of 150,000 sq ft. The latter is anchored by Homebase, Curry’s and Matalan.  

The destination attracts around 75,000 customers every week.