Estate has the pulling power
Mar 3 2009 by Sue Scott, Evening Gazette
PORTRACK has become a magnet for some of the country’s leading brands...
B&Q - Europe’s largest home improvement and garden centre retailer has more than 330 stores and 40,000 employees.
McDonald’s - The global food retailer has more than 30,000 local restaurants serving 52m people in more than 100 countries each day.
ScS - The Sunderland-based sofa retailer has almost 100 stores nationwide.
Asda - The supermarket giant has a store on Portrack Lane and opened a 360,000 sq ft import centre at Teesport last year.
Allied Carpets - One of the UK’s biggest floorcovering retailers has stores from Stockton to Swansea.
And local companies have also gravitated to the site...
Web design specialists VisualSoft recently moved its Stockton office from Preston Park to free up space for the 60 staff it eventually hopes to employ.
Family owned North-east giftware retailer Collectables snapped up Portrack’s Mandale Fine Furniture business earlier this year and has created a link between the two stores, which continue to trade under the brand names. Head of retail John Marlor admitted it was “not an easy time to come into this market” but said he was excited by the opportunities the site presented.
Later this month specialist outdoor clothing and equipment retailer GO Outdoors will open its first North-east outlet at Portrack Lane. It takes over the 35,000 sq ft unit from Courts Furniture.
Amanda Burbridge, associate director in Sanderson Weatherall’s Teesside office, which brokered the lease, said it was “an excellent addition to an already strong line-up of retailers on Portrack Lane”.
