DAA puts out to tender lease of Dublin Airport Terminal 1 store

The booming business of a health and beauty store at Dublin Airport that clocked up sales of €8.36m last year is up for grabs, writes Gordon Deegan.

The store is operated by Boots and now DAA is looking for interest from prospective retailers to manage and operate the store over the next five years.

The store is one of the flagship Boots stores in its Irish business and the retailer will likely be eager to retain its business in the DAA competition.

The most recent accounts for Boots Ireland indicate the Dublin Airport store is one of its best performing in Ireland, based on the estimated average revenue per store.

Boots Ireland in 2016 posted revenues of €367m from 84 stores and the overall revenues include online sales.

The business is ideally located airside for the 49,589 air passengers on average that walk by the store each day after passing security at Terminal 1 at the airport.

The rent roll from the store will be a strong contributor to the DAA’s annual revenues from its retail and catering concessions.

In 2016, the DAA’s revenues from direct retailing and retail-catering concessions increased from €132.2m to €145.85m. The tender is the second high-profile retail tenders put on the market by the DAA.

The stores are currently operated by UK retail firm WH Smith and the DAA say they generated sales of €14.7m last year.

Four of the stores are airside with the fifth landside at Terminal 1.

The company’s most recent accounts show it had revenues of €23.69m in the 12 months to the end of August.

The second tender is also for five years. WH Smith is expected to make a strong bid to retain its Terminal 1 business.