Boots eyes Trim as location for new store

Pharmacy chain Boots has earmarked Trim as one of 30 possible locations in which it is looking to establish a new store. David McKenna, formerly head of property for Carphone Warehouse in Ireland, has been appointed as estates manager for Boots. His role is to drive the store expansion in Ireland, while at the same time undertaking a fundamental review of the property cost base. Boots opened its first store in the Republic of Ireland in 1996 and has expanded since through a combination of company acquisitions and organic expansion. The company currently has a total of 67 branches throughout the country having signed just over 15 per cent of these in the last year. Coinciding with this new approach, Jones Lang LaSalle's Dublin office has been appointed as agents to advise Boots on all property matters for its Irish business. Stephen Murray, retail director of Jones Lang LaSalle, said: "We have been appointed by Boots to rigorously review the existing portfolio of properties and benchmark each of these to market rent to ensure the cost base is appropriate. Due to the extremely difficult retail letting market, we are also optimistic about our ability to deliver 25 new outlets over the next three years." Boots has already opened nine stores in 2011 so far, with a further five scheduled to open before year end, delivering a total of 150 new jobs in that period. The retailer's store requirements range from neighbourhood-type opportunities of the order of 3,000 square feet up to a Dublin city centre flagship store of the order of 20,000 square feet. Stephen Murray and Lisa McGrane in Jones Lang LaSalle confirmed that the over 30 or so possible target locations for new Boots outlets include Trim, as well as Dublin city centre, Stillorgan, Blackrock, Lucan, Malahide, Carlow, Tullamore, Galway, Ballinasloe, Enniscorthy, Arklow, Shannon and Dungarvan. Already, over a dozen possibilities meeting the company's criteria, many not yet openly on the market, have already been presented.