Disney comes to Grafton Street

Mickey Mouse and his friends are set to take over the Laura Ashley premises in Dublin city centre early next year

THE ENTERTAINMENT giant Disney is believed to have paid key money of up to € 500,000 for the lease of the Laura Ashley store on Dublins Grafton Street.

The company will not open its first ever Dublin operation until the first half of next year because of ongoing refurbishment work on the building where Laura Ashley workers have been protesting over redundancy terms offered by the Malaysian-owned company.

The arrival of Disney may well restore some faith in Grafton Street which has taken a severe battering over the past two years because of inflated rents and difficulties in leasing some of the smaller stores until the rents were substantially reduced.

Disney will undoubtedly attract thousands of children and their parents to the street where the company plans to use its new design concept, similar to that in the recently refurbished Disney store in Belfast.

Teresa Tideman, joint managing director of Disney Store Europe, said yesterday that the new store promised to delight children and adults through cutting edge technology, quality product and unique experiences, bringing Disney’s most important characters and stories to life.

Disney’s decision to take over the Laura Ashley store has prompted Dunnes Stores to reopen its retail building next door.

Dunnes has been closed for almost 20 months and, surprisingly, it is reverting to its original policy of specialising in the sale of women’s fashion goods by Savida with back up from Paul Costello’s homewares. Disney originally attempted to lease the double-fronted Dunnes Stores but was apparently rebuffed by the multiple.

Disney will be paying a rent of €950,000 for its new building which has a floor area of 994 sq m (10,700sq ft) including 557sq m (6,000sq ft) of retail space at basement, ground and first floors.

The configuration allows for substantial storage, an essential requirement for a store leased by Disney.

Disney has a strong preference for high streets and is currently relocating on London’s Oxford Street. It also has a high-profile store on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. The company operates more than 100 outlets in all in France, Spain, Italy and Portugal and 56 in the UK.

Laura Ashley claimed in a statement last week that its Grafton Street property was no longer suited to its range of products, “thus affecting its profitability” – a curious comment given that it was happy to trade from the same premises for almost 20 years.

The company has been affected by the fall-off in consumer spending over the past two years.

Last December it reported much reduced profits of € 413,208 from its Irish stores in the year to January, 2009, less than a third of its net profits in the previous years.

The other stores are located at Blanchardstown, Cork, Galway, Limerick and Athlone and there is a concession arrangement with the House of Fraser in Dundrum.

Laura Ashley said it would look at other appropriate central Dublin locations “with a view to opening another store if a suitable site becomes available”.

Alison Dunne of CB Richard Ellis in London advised Disney.