With a permit in hand, The Conlan Co. can make tenant improvements for European-based budget fashion retailer Primark in Imeson Park South in North Jacksonville.
The city issued a permit Aug. 25 for Conlan to build-out space for Primark in Building C, also known as Building 200, at 1511 Zoo Parkway at a project cost of $14.565 million.
CoStar News reported May 17 that Primark will lease a 547,200-square-foot distribution center in Jacksonville.
The city issued a permit June 13, 2022, for Conlan to build the 547,200-square-foot speculative structure at a cost of almost $25.9 million.
According to Imeson Park South developer VanTrust Real Estate, the building will be completed in January 2024. Macgregor Associates Architects of Atlanta is the architect for the Primark project.
Plans show warehouse space filled with racking, as well as a main office, a transport office, a battery charge room, a cafeteria and an outdoor seating area.
The permit includes 20,445 square feet for offices and other interior space and 1,300 square feet of outdoor seating area.
About Primark
“The fast fashion clothes, footwear, homeware and beauty group has had its sights set on the United States for some time,” CoStar wrote.
CoStar said Primark’s prices for its goods include accessories sold for as low as $3 and jeans and jackets at under $50.
Businessinsider.com reported April 25 that “cut-price fast-fashion retailer Primark is considering an ambitious U.S. expansion, opening stores across southern states like Texas and Florida.”
It said that Primark’s parent company, Associated British Foods plc, said in its earnings report that Primark was planning to establish “a significant presence” in the southern U.S.
It said that it expected to sign leases for stores across the South, including in Texas.
It reported the new stores will be anchored by a distribution center the company is building in Jacksonville, its second in the U.S., Associated British Foods CEO George Weston said during the first-half earnings call. The first is in Pennsylvania.
Associated British Foods is based in London.
As of April, Primark had 17 stores in the U.S., with most in New York and New England. The company opened its first U.S. store in 2015 in Boston.
BusinessInsider.com reported that Primark said in late 2021 that it planned to bring its total U.S. store count to 60 by 2027.
From September 2022 to April 2023, Primark opened four new stores in New York with four more planned to open by this September: two in New York state, two in New Jersey and one in Maryland.
The new site said Primark also signed leases to open stores in Orlando and in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Space leased in the U.S. runs about 35,000 square feet for each store.
Behind the expansion
Weston said that Primark was targeting the South with its expansion plans because of the lower store opening costs as well as the strong performance of the chain’s first Florida store, which is in the Sawgrass Mills shopping center in Sunrise.
As of March 4, Primark had 419 stores in 15 countries, with nearly half in the United Kingdom.
Reuters.com reported April 25 that in April 2020, Primark was unable to sell hundreds of millions of British pounds of stock with its store network shut by coronavirus pandemic lockdowns and no online sales capability.
“Fast forward three years and the retailer, unlike several former competitors, is starting to thrive again, having navigated the turbulence of the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and now appealing to cash-strapped customers with its value offer and breadth of product range,” Reuters reported.
The company is accelerating expansion, with an eye on a much bigger presence in the U.S.
Weston told Reuters in an interview that the company has broadened its product range to higher-priced items.
Reuters reported that Primark is targeting having 530 stores by 2026, accelerating growth in the major markets of the U.S., France, Italy and Iberia and restructuring its German business.
It also reported that Primark said it would expand into the southern U.S. states, including Texas, served by a new warehouse in Jacksonville.
CoStar News reported May 17 that “Primark’s plans to keep its phenomenal growth story going, and then some, by conquering the United States hinge on the strategy that has already made it big in the United Kingdom and Europe.”
It reported that from beginnings in Dublin in 1969 under the name Penneys, Primark “has become one of the great retail success stories over the past 20 years.”
“From a real estate perspective, that has been striking because it has done so by eschewing an online sales strategy while amassing 419 stores across 13 European countries, moving from small shops to bigger and bigger ones and then on to 100,000-square-foot-plus anchor units.”
CoStar said that Primark “has created thriving positions in malls, and on high streets or main streets, by leasing in the traditional manner or buying entire malls to get the space it wants.”
CoStar said a number of critical features remain in place for the business.
“First, it still has little interest in having an online business apart from a recent and growing flirtation with shopping over the Internet and picking up the product at the store. This has liberated it from the hefty processing costs faced by rivals committed to online platforms,” CoStar wrote.
“There is also the focus on affordability, and its drive to leverage its position as the ‘only show in town’ by snapping up space left behind by struggling larger department store chains and, in doing so hammering out very good real estate deals.”