Next is understood to be opening up an outlet store at Fforestfach Retail Park in Swansea. It's thought the high street clothing chain will open inside the unit left vacant by River Island.
Wales Online has been told the store will officially open its doors on Monday, April 17, at 10am, and sell clearance items including womenswear, menswear, children's wear, home and branded clothing. It's expected to create around 28 new permanent jobs, with plans to recruit additional temporary staff.
The unit is expected to be refitted at the beginning of April ahead of the grand opening. It will operate between 9am and 8pm from Monday to Friday, 9am until 7pm on Saturdays and 10am until 4pm on Sundays. Get Swansea stories straight to your inbox with our newsletter.
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The new store's opening follows the closure of Next in Oxford Street, Swansea city centre. That unit has now been replaced by Shoe Zone, which itself relocated from Union Street. You can take a first look inside the new Shoe Zone store by clicking here.
The new addition will come as a welcome one for the retail park, which currently has six empty units, There will soon be a seventh, as the retail park is set to lose yet another store in Homesense, which has announced it is quitting Swansea and relocating to Llanelli instead. The homewares store will be closing its doors for good at the retail park at the end of March and directly transferring to Trostre Retail Park. You can read more about that by clicking here.
Supermarket chain Aldi will also soon open its fifth store at the retail park in the old New Look unit, right next door to Tesco Extra. The German budget supermarket already has branches at Parc Tawe, Cwmdu, Gorseinon and Llansamlet. In June last year, Swansea Council granted planning permission to an applicant known only as the 'UK Warehouse Retail Fund' to reconfigure unit 12 and 13, to create a much larger base.
Building work has also begun to create a new McDonald's drive-thru restaurant, which will have a 95-seat ground floor restaurant, outdoor seating area, and employ 65 people. Next has been contacted for comment.
READ NEXT:
- Why Tesco Extra Fforestfach's car park is being dug up with major construction work taking place
- The out-of-town ‘future of shopping’ centre that's being deserted by its tenants
- The gaping hole in Swansea’s main shopping street and what's happening with it
- Homesense at Parc Fforestfach in Swansea is closing and moving to Parc Trostre in Llanelli
- Aldi looks set to open at Swansea retail park
