Homeware chain JYSK pushes out plans for second Cork store

Danish giant was due to have second store up and running in Eastgate Retail Park in Little Island by June

'We see JYSK having five or six stores in Cork so if there is someone out there with 1,200 sq ft premises, that is what we are looking for,' said JYSK sales and marketing manager Jenny Johnston.

International homeware chain JYSK, which was due to have a second Cork store up and running by June, has had to push out its opening date indefinitely due to Covid-19 restrictions.

The delay could run into next year because, while restrictions remain in place, it will not be in a position to carry out any changes to the premises it has identified in Eastgate Retail Park, Little Island, as the site of its second store.

However, JYSK’s trawl for additional sites in Cork, where the plan is to open up to six stores, is continuing.

JYSK’s arrival to Eastgate will see the last remaining unit in the retail park filled, with all 16,258 sq m (175,000 sq ft) of retail accommodation on the 35-acre site finally occupied.

JYSK sales and marketing manager Jenny Johnston said it intends to employ a dozen workers at its Eastgate store, adding that while it was “still definitely hoping to move in, the timeline is not set in stone”.

“With this [latest lockdown] running to March, it’s really hard to say when, but all going well, we hope it will be this year anyway,” Ms Johnston said.

Eastgate Retail Park will be fully tenanted with the arrival of Danish homeware giant JYSK. However its opening date has been delayed by Covid-19

Despite the pandemic, the Danish home furnishings giant is continuing to trawl for suitable sites to accommodate up to four more stores in Cork City and county, she said.

“We see JYSK having five or six stores in Cork so if there is someone out there with 1,200 sq ft premises, that is what we are looking for.”

Ms Johnston said its existing Cork premises, at Greencloyne in Youghal, is “doing really great, for such a small population”, despite being reduced to online retail during the lockdown.

She said JYSK would “love to be opening more stores this summer, but the longer this [lockdown] goes on, the harder it is to say when that will happen”.

“We absolutely want to open as many stores as we can. We haven’t identified other locations in Cork at the moment, but no city or town is too small.”

Unlike Swedish homeware giant Ikea, Ms Johnston said JYSK is a “small store concept” with the aim of “being close to the customer”.

“We are not planning a huge warehouse in one city,” she said.

Ms Johnston said there is “a huge appetite for DIY in Ireland” and that it had seen “a huge uplift” last year, initially in furniture and bedding, followed by homewares and textiles.

JYSK opened its first Irish store in Naas, Co Kildare, in April 2019 and expanded rapidly to nine stores nationwide, as part of a plan for a 15-store rollout.

Its planned arrival at Eastgate will mean the retail park, master-planned and developed by the O’Flynn Group for about 20 years, is fully tenanted, with the involvement of agents Cushman and Wakefield.

Eastgate’s development was seen as key to exploiting the potential offered by the nearby Jack Lynch Tunnel, which opened in May 1999. Eastgate has attracted a series of high-profile home furnishing tenants over the years, including anchor tenants The Range and Harvey Norman, in addition to Tubs & Tiles and Ez Living.

The park is adjacent to Eastgate Business Park, also part of the O’Flynn Group development. Between them, the parks extend to 120 acres.

Tenants of the business park include LAYA Healthcare, Lilly, DPS Engineering, CIF, Pepsi, and Gilead in approximately 1,000,000 sq ft of office accommodation.

Last year, the O’Flynn Group got planning for additional office development at Park Place, consisting of three office blocks extending to 12,104 sq m (130,288 sq ft). The scheme is adjacent to Little Island train station at the entrance to Eastgate.