London Designer Outlet (LDO) at Wembley Park, the capital’s only fashion & lifestyle outlet centre, celebrates its fourth birthday this week. Since opening, it has increased its footfall by almost one million per year and achieved 15 consecutive quarters of sales growth, making it the UK’s fastest growing outlet centre.
LDO is owned by Quintain as part of its £3bn Wembley Park mixed use development, where it is currently investing £1m a day. LDO is managed by Realm, the UK’s largest specialist outlet operator, and has outperformed industry sales and footfall indices since December 2013, just two months after opening. Sales revenues have grown by almost 90% in the first four years and sales densities by almost 50. Its trading success means that LDO is 99% let and this year has welcomed to its mix a number of brands including Converse, Dr Martens and Vans.
LDO is an urban outlet centre serving the neighbouring residential and working population in Wembley Park and the wider London and home counties catchment. The average age of customers is 36, the lowest of any major UK outlet centre, and 65% of visitors are ABC1. The centre is the nearest outlet for 5.8 million people, the largest such catchment in the UK. Over half of visitors are in Acorn’s Comfortable Communities categories, notably Successful Suburbs, and Rising Prosperity categories.
Christine Grace, Realm’s Leasing Director for LDO, said: “We recently hosted a marketing and study tour for 50 retail agents. The most common feedback was not realising how much had changed since opening and how impressive the tenant mix is. With occupancy at almost 100%, we’re now attracting well over 7 million guests per year. Almost twice as many people visit LDO each year than go to Wembley Stadium and The SSE Arena, Wembley, combined.”
In 2015 and 2016, LDO was independently ranked in the top 10 best performing outlets in Europe and 2nd in the UK. Its retailers include Europe’s top Guess outlet store for the past two years, and one of Nike’s top three outlet stores in Europe. LDO is also home to the best Gap Outlet in the UK, and the fastest-growing M&S Outlet in the UK. Converse, the iconic American shoe brand, opened its first retail store in the UK in August this year and chose LDO as the best place to be.
James Saunders, Chief Operating Officer at Quintain, said: “Quintain’s investment in LDO has already proven its worth, achieving consistent quarter-on-quarter growth for nearly four years. LDO’s strong performance will be boosted further in the next few years as Quintain delivers the significant new residential community at Wembley Park, set to become the UK’s single largest build to rent development. Within four years there will be over 10,000 residents living in close proximity to LDO, together with 3,000 more office workers, and visitors to a series of new attractions including BoxPark Wembley, all resulting from Quintain’s £1m a day investment into Wembley Park’s future.”
