Top chains targeting The Hague

Five popular clothing retail chains plan to open shops in The Hague’s city centre. In the coming few years Hollister, Forever 21, Topshop, Marks & Spencer and Primark will probably open new megastores in the city.

The new shops could each get more than 4,000 square metres of retail space spread over several storeys, sort of mini-department stores.

The Hague is faring better than competing cities in terms of its downtown shopping area. Sales are rising, rental prices are shooting up and shops are becoming increasingly larger.

The Irish retailer Primark will have the largest amount of retail space of all the new clothing chains. Primark, hugely popular everywhere in the world where it has a shop thanks to its low prices and fast changing collections, will open its doors in 2014. Primark will have about 8,000 square metres in a newly-constructed building at the corner of the Spui and Kalvermarkt.

Forever 21 targets young clothing fans. The somewhat more expensive Hollister is one of the most popular chain stores among American teenagers. The British Topshop is loved among fashionistas, with top model Kate Moss designing her own clothing line for the store in 2007 and 2010.

Marks & Spencer will probably return to The Hague after more than ten years. It has set its sights on a location on the Grote Marktstraat.

Before the foreign clothing shops arrive in The Hague, the Bijenkorf will get a huge makeover and an additional 1,750 square metres of retail space.

Translated from the AD/Haagsche Courant, 4 February 2012