Eastgate Retail Park gets homewares chain The Range

With most of Cork’s suburban retail parks now at or close to full occupancy, the arrival of UK homewares chain The Range as the anchor tenant at Eastgate Retail Park sees another c 60,000 sq ft taken up, and a new brand name enter the recovering Munster retail fray, with a product range spanning 65,000 items.

Set up in 1989, The Range has 130 UK stores, and expanded into Limerick’s Childers Road Retail Park in August. It also plans to open in Dublin, and is now set to open in Cork on January 6, where it will employ up to 80 across 16 departments, including arts and crafts, household, cafe and DIY. In Limerick, it took a lot of its 70-plus staff off the Liver Register.

Fit out now for its second Irish outlet in Cork has just started at the 60,000 sq ft unit, with garden section. It will be the unit’s first-ever occupier, and a significant anchor for Eastgate, who in the early 2000s had eyed B&Q.