Beleaguered Boohoo closes another warehouse
THE TROUBLED fast fashion retailer is set to close its 1.2 million ft2 Daventry facility, at Prologis’ RFI DIRFT III, which comprises a 404,000 sq ft floor plate with mezzanine floors and three storey offices totalling 40,000 ft2, with the loss of some 400 jobs.
By Liza Helps, Property Editor, Logistics Matters
Boohoo is shutting down the warehouse hot on the heels of the announcement of the closure of its manufacturing facility in Leicester following a challenging year, as reported in Logistics Matters.
The company only acquired the secondhand building in 2021 in a complicated deal which saw investor developer Prologis snap up the former Arcadia warehouse in Daventry from the administrators Deloitte for more than £60 million in a ‘best bid’ battle. Prologis then let the property immediately to Boohoo on a 15 year lease at a rent thought to be around £7 per ft2.
The state of the art warehouse had originally been built by Arcadia Group at a cost of £29.4 million in 2019, after it had acquired the plot freehold from Prologis for £40 million in 2016.
When Boohoo took on the facility it said that it would invest a further £50 million to help boost sales capacity to £4 billion and increase employment form 500 to over 1000 jobs. The warehouse was expected to service group brands including Dorothy Perkins, Wallis and Burton.
Last year Boohoo closed its 287,634 ft2 former House of Fraser warehouse in Wellingborough which serviced its Nasty Gal, Oasis, Warehoue and Karen Millen brands.
A Boohoo Group spokesperson said: “For the past three years, our Daventry distribution centre has played an important role in Boohoo Group’s UK operation. We would like to thank our colleagues for their hard work during this time. As our business and customer needs evolve, the group has taken the difficult but necessary decision to close our Daventry operation and divert investment to other UK sites, in order to better serve our customers around the world.
“We are working closely with all affected colleagues to ensure they are fully supported throughout this time.”
The company has distribution centres in Burnley and Sheffield as well as a state of the art facility in Pennsylvania in the USA. Its Burnley headquarters site and facilities spread to over 3 million ft2 while it leases 600,000 ft2 of warehouse space in Sheffield from Exeter Property Group. It is not known at present whether Boohoo will sub let or assign the lease of the facility in Daventry.
