The Role / Location
Lesley Bloomfield Shopping Centre and Retail Park, Bangor
Lesley Bloomfield Shopping Centre is owned by Herbert Property, a major player in the Northern Irish commercial property market, specialising in the retail sector (The Lesley brand currently owns and manages over 1,000,000 Sqft of retail assets).
Lesley Bloomfield occupies an overall estate size of c.31 acres, and represents North Down’s largest concentration of retail space, with c. 425,000 Sqft of retail accommodation across the core shopping centre and adjacent retail park. The Centre is anchored by Marks & Spencer and Tesco, and includes other notable occupiers such as Next, TK Maxx, JD Sports and Waterstones. The wider site also includes five external F&B units and offers c.1600 customer car parking spaces.
We are seeking an exceptional candidate to lead this significant estate into its next exciting stage of development.
The successful candidate will have responsibility for all aspects of Centre Management to ensure that Lesley Bloomfield continues to thrive as the dominant retail destination in the catchment with an exceptional and rapidly expanding tenant offer.
Key Responsibilities
As Centre Manager of Lesley Bloomfield, lead the Centre Management team to manage and operate the Centre to the very highest professional standards, providing excellent customer experience to all stakeholders.
The Centre Manager, although reporting to the Director of Property Management in Savills, will also be attending regular meetings with the owner of the Centre providing updates and consulting on strategic matters.
Duty Management for weekends/bank holidays.
Implement excellent working practices and innovation at Lesley Bloomfield, ensuring that the Centre remains ‘best in class’ and dominant in the catchment.
Liaise with the landlord / property management team and all related stakeholders to help achieve the required goals and targets for Lesley Bloomfield.
Be responsible for driving and maximising customer footfall and retail sales opportunities with all tenants.
Ensure that the Centre is maintained to an excellent standard and contractors are carrying out their work to an appropriate and compliant standard.
Oversee the Centre Management team and all 3rd party suppliers/ contractors to ensure a joined-up approach in achieving overall goals.
Ensure high levels of customer service are always provided by the Centre Management team (and wider supply chain).
Monitor Centre performance including footfall and retailer sales performance.
Provide such reports and attend such meetings as required for the purposes of reporting Centre progress and updates.
In conjunction with the owner and property management team, continually explore ways of operating more efficiently / updating working strategy in conjunction with evolving client, market and legislative demands.
Have a full understanding and appreciation of the business strategy for the Centre and take responsibility for its implementation within the context of the Centre Management team.
Manage and have full responsibility for overseeing the annual service charge budget, manage expenditure throughout the service charge period and assist with the reconciliation at year end.
Working with the Centre marketing team and property management team along with any appointed external agencies, ensure the marketing strategy is effectively developed and executed to drive footfall and sales including ongoing review of return on investment.
Ensure that the Centre is the dominant retail destination in the wider catchment and is industry recognized as such.
Person Specification
Minimum:
Senior Commercial Management experience
Strong leadership skills with a proven track record of managing a large team.
Service Charge operation within a Shopping Centre environment.
Excellent communicator at all levels.
Excellent presentation skills.
Excellent Financial Management skills.
Influential.
Self-motivated.
Proficient decision maker.
Ability to network.
Previous PR and Marketing exposure at a strategic level.
Strong operational H&S knowledge.
Previous real estate, retail, leisure, property/asset management experience.
Desirable:
5+ years Centre Manager/Director experience
Industry recognized Shopping Centre Management qualification or working towards it.
Previous experience of managing operations in a large-scale retail/leisure environment (i.e. in excess of 250,000 sqft).
Sound knowledge of corporate responsibility and environmental issues.
Achievement of other professional qualifications/ Awards relevant to the role.
Practicable construction knowledge.
P & L Experience.
Savills Ireland is an equal opportunity employer.
Savills aims to attract, recruit and retain the best people from the widest possible pool of talent. As such, we are committed to creating an inclusive and diverse working environment for all employees by striving at all times to be an organisation which does not discriminate, values everyone’s talents and abilities and where diversity is positively promoted.
