Our Boys, one of the longest established retail premises on Dublin's Wicklow Street, is to close and new leaseholders can expect to pay key money in excess of £120,000 for the 1,000 sq ft premises. DTZ Sherry FitzGerald is handling the sale and the rent on the atmospheric old shop is £23,750 per annum on the 35-year lease, which began in 1988.
The shop is very much one of a kind in Dublin and not just because it is a specialist shop in a city with few specialists. At a time when the difference between boys' and girls' clothes is minimal, it specialised exclusively in boys' clothes that were so proper and grown up that the shop could as easily have been called Little Men. Before its closing down sale began, its rails were full of perfectly tailored blazers and twill pants with crisp white formal shirts and scaled-down ties. It harked back to a time when young children were dressed like mini versions of adults so it was the place to go to buy your three-year-old an impeccably tailored pure wool winter coat with a velvet collar for £70 or a pair of gabardine wool trousers for £40.
In recent years, it moved a little with the times. It stocked the more fashionable but still very high-end boys' clothes so a mini man could be dressed in a Burberry wool blouson for £70, while his younger brother could be kitted out in the lively Lego range.
The superb sales staff who stood behind the old-fashioned draperystyle glass counters were from the old school who weren't only helpful and knowledgeable but could tell a young boy's shirt size from fifty paces. The shop itself still looks solidly old-fashioned - with its formal outdoor signage, cubbyhole shelving system and wood-panelled walls inside. The space is divided into a 400 sq ft retail area on ground level and a retail basement of 500 sq ft. There is also an office in a mezzanine level on the ground floor.
The agents say that they already have had interest from UK multiples and indeed interest in this street in general has grown steadily as availability on Grafton Street becomes less and less and prices there continue on the up and up. The new tenants of Our Boys will have as their neighbours two recent tenants, Butlers Chocolates on one side and Hagen Daz on the other. Indeed, Butlers is possibly one of the most impressive-looking shops in the area thanks to its high quality fit out and old-fashioned elegance. The rise in Wicklow Street's attractiveness as a retail street coincided to a great extent with the opening of the Brown Thomas car-park. Motorists have to drive down the street to get access to the car-park giving shops fronts tremendous visibility.
