£36m shopping park scheme promises 300 jobs

JF FINNEGAN has won the contract to deliver Cortonwood Shopping Park, the 120,000 sq ft retail extension to the 50 acre Cortonwood Retail Park near Rotherham.

Work has now started on site to construct the £36m retail park which will create more than 300  jobs.

Helical Retail has already secured pre-lets to leading national retailers on 10 of the 11 units, all of which are new retailers to the area.

M&S, JD Sports, River Island, H&M, New Look, Arcadia, Poundland, CJ Clarke, Wilkinson and Frankie & Benny’s form the new line up at Cortonwood Shopping Park leaving just one 4,000 sq ft unit available via letting agent Edgerley Simpson Howe.

JF Finnegan has started work on site which involves the demolition of a vacant 150,000 sq ft warehouse, formerly occupied by UPS, following which site preparation works will take place ready for the development of 11 new retail units totalling 120,000 sq ft for occupiers to be trading by Autumn 2017.

The contract continues JF Finnegan’s long-standing involvement at the former colliery site, having constructed all 250,000 sq ft of retail units in the previous phases over the last 20 years.

Occupiers at the flagship retail park include B&Q, Morrisons, Next, Argos, Asda Living and Boots.

Helical Retail’s Adrian Russell said: “Our aspirations for a new retail development to enhance the existing offering at Cortonwood have been long awaited by the local residents and we are delighted to have now reached the stage where work is starting on site.

“By attracting new retailers to the area, the scheme is bringing significant capital investment and new jobs to the locality in addition to adding to the vibrancy of an already successful retail destination. We appointed JF Finnegan due to their historic involvement with Cortonwood and their strong reputation and are looking forward to seeing work progress on site.”

Dawa Singh, head of pre-construction at JF Finnegan, said: “Over the years we have witnessed the transformation of Cortonwood into one of the region’s most acclaimed regeneration projects and shopping destinations. We have been working alongside Helical Retail and their Project Managers PMS (Wessex) Limited for some time to develop the plans for the new extension which will ensure the continued success of the development. Our teams are now undertaking preparatory works on site.”