Hamleys has opened its first stand-alone store outside of London as part of the redevelopment of Glasgow’s St Enoch Centre.
The unveiling of the shop marks the first part of the centre’s £100 million transformation, which was unveiled on Thursday by its Canadian owners Ivanhoe Cambridge.
The 30,000 foot Hamleys store will be hoping to attract the same sort of success of its London base.
As well as the arrival of Hamleys, a host of other retailers are coming to Glasgow for the first time as part of the transformation.
Fashion shop Henleys, jewellery and accessories specialist Folli Follie and Swiss watch company Swatch are amongst those stores.
In September, it was reported that the new St Enoch Centre will bring 700 jobs to Glasgow.
Susan Nicol, General Manager of the centre, said: "Our success in attracting world-class retailers such as Hamleys is a perfect illustration of what Ivanhoe Cambridge set out to achieve in redeveloping and re-profiling the Centre.
"Hamleys is a fantastic brand which pulls in enormous numbers of visitors and tourists to its London store and we’re confident that they will repeat that success in Glasgow.
"The huge improvement in the Centre’s visibility is crucial and, of course, we’ve been able to attract quality retailers such as H&M, Henleys, Folli Follie, Pulp, Wheels of Sport, Lambretta and Swatch, many of whom are coming to Scotland for the first time."
Hamleys’ Chief Executive, Gudjon Reynisson commented: "St. Enoch was appealing to us from the very start. Being the traditional location for second stores in the UK, it seemed only right to bring our second UK store to Glasgow.
"The Centre’s location on the city’s ‘Golden Z’ is important to us and the design and layout gives tremendous presence at the foot of Buchanan Street and Argyle Street.
"The quality tenant mix at the scheme is complementary for our business and with high-end brands such as Frasers nearby, the St. Enoch development promises to raise and maintain the high quality shopping offer that Glasgow has become renowned for."
Last updated: 26 November 2009, 19:21
The links provided allow you to bookmark this page into your favourite social media website. For users with JavaScript disabled copy and paste the URL from the address bar into your chosen social bookmarking site.