Scotland’s largest undercover shopping and leisure centre, East Kilbride Shopping Centre, has been put up for sale by its administrators.
The shopping centre went into administration in November 2022 following financial difficulties and declining footfall.
The EK shopping centre faced an uncertain future when its Luxembourg-based owner, Sapphire, became insolvent. This followed several years of financial challenges, as the centre struggled to attract and retain businesses.
Scoop, an asset manager appointed by Interpath, has collaborated with South Lanarkshire Council to improve the financial stability of the shopping centre over the past two years.
Mark Hewett, partner at Scoop, commented: ‘This represents a rare opportunity to acquire a major regional scheme and site, with the ability to collaborate with the local authority on a transformative scheme and town that holds immense potential to generate substantial value for the local community.’
Alistair McAlinden, head of Interpath Advisory in Scotland, said: ‘Over the past 22 months, substantial work has been undertaken by multiple stakeholders including South Lanarkshire Council to ensure that this development, as part of the 10-year masterplan, will generate transformative value for the town of East Kilbride and the local community.’
Mark Garmon-Jones, director of retail investment at Savills, added: ‘The redevelopment, guided by the masterplan endorsed earlier this year, is set to realign the town centre and its community, offering significant potential for short-term running yield improvement and long-term transformation of the asset as it is strategically repositioned.’
The shopping centre covers approximately 92,903 m2 of retail space across four distinct malls: Plaza, Olympia, Princes Mall, and Princes Square. Major retailers like Primark, JD Sports, and Odeon Luxe are anchor tenants in the centre. The development also offers 1,700 parking spaces.
The move comes as part of a wider £62.2 mln (€74.6 mln), 10-year redevelopment plan backed by the local council to transform the shopping and leisure destination into a vibrant, high-quality urban environment.
The masterplan includes demolishing the neighbouring Centre West Shopping Centre and building up to 400 new homes in its place. The redevelopment is expected to drive annual footfall back to pre-pandemic levels of around 15 million.
Savills has been appointed to market the commercial property on behalf of Interpath Advisory.
