Marks and Spencer (M&S) has today announced that it will be opening a new, larger M&S store in Colchester at the Stane Retail Park in Stanway. The exciting new store will offer local customers in Colchester a bigger range of M&S products than ever before, with new Foodhall and Clothing & Home departments, and an M&S Café.
The local expansion follows previously announced plans to open an M&S Foodhall in Stane Retail Park, with the retailer extending into an adjacent unit to create a new, larger store with 62,000 sq ft of trading space.
The £70m Stane Retail Park will be fully completed this month, when M&S will then begin work on their new store which will open later this autumn.
Andrew Icke, Regional Manager for M&S, said:
“We’re excited to announce our plans to invest in the local area and open a brand new, larger M&S store at Stane Retail Park, which will offer customers in Colchester a much bigger range of M&S products across our Foodhall and Clothing & Home departments, and a new M&S Café. The new store will be finished and open to customers later this autumn.”
As part of the relocation, the existing M&S Colchester store will close later this year, but will remain open as normal until the new store is ready. There will be opportunities for all colleagues working in the current store to work in the new Stane Retail Park store or other local M&S stores. There will also be additional new job opportunities created for local workers when the store opens.
Andrew Icke, Regional Manager for M&S, continued:
“Shopping habits are changing, so we’re rotating our store estate to make sure we have the right stores to offer our customers a brilliant shopping experience. We appreciate the current store closure may be disappointing news for some, but we believe this is the right decision to invest in a new store for the local area so we can deliver the very best of M&S for customers in Colchester.”
Matt Cloke, Development Director at Churchmanor Estates, said:
“Stane Retail Park is the only major retail park in the country to be built and funded through the Covid pandemic period and we are pleased that the risk we took to build the scheme speculatively has been endorsed by M&S with their decision to invest in a new, larger M&S store for Colchester on our site.”
As part of the construction works Churchmanor have spent £2.6million on improvements to the Eight Ash Green A12 roundabout with a new four way traffic signal junction and the widening of the Western Bypass to two lanes between Essex Yeomanry Way and the Sainsbury’s roundabout.
Emma Proctor King, Head of Communications from Churchmanor said:
“We are pleased that Marks and Spencer have decided to take more space at Stane Retail Park. We feel confident that this will enhance the continued success of the retail park and provide an improved shopping experience for the residents of Stanway.”
Finishing touches being added to the M&S unit.
