RETAIL giant Marks & Spencer is set to open a new multi-million pound flagship store in Newry next year.
The Irish News understand it intends opening the standalone superstore at the Quays.
M&S already employs 2,600 staff at 21 shops in the north, including 11 chain stores and eight in its Simply Food division.
Confirmation of the expansion in understood to have been rubber-stamped at a board meeting earlier this week.
When initially contacted by the Irish News a spokesman for M&S said “We don’t comment on speculation or rumour”.
But on Friday night, as news of the growth gathered pace, the company said it didn't want to say anything at this stage.
That was seen as being a closer indication of a likely go-ahead.
And the Irish News understands that if approval comes from the enlarged Newry Council, work on the building could begin early in the new year and the store may be trading as soon as next Christmas.
Nobody from Newry's Chamber of Commerce was available for comment on Friday night.
However, the that fact M&S - which is currently an anchor tenant at the rival Buttercrane centre - is choosing to locate within the city and not out-of-town, will be widely welcomed.
The Quays, where M&S intend relocating, is owned by property firm Parker Green International, which earlier this year refinanced loans which were held by the Cerberus investment fund.
Cerberus took control of the Parker Green loans as part of its £1.2 billion purchase of Nama's Northern Ireland loan book.
But Parker Green, owned by Dr Gerard O'Hare, subsequently became the first borrower in the north to refinance its Cerberus loans after it agreed new terms with lenders Garrison Investment Group in New York and Earlsfort Capital in Dublin.
That, it claimed at the time, would allow it to proceed with planned future developments, including the extension of the Quays centre.
M&S, if it does leave Buttercrane for the Quays, will do so at a tricky time corporately.
Last month is warned of ‘spiky’ trading after a slowdown in clothing sales last summer.
In the last quarter it recorded a 1.9 per cent slide in sales of general merchandise at established stores compared with a 0.4 per cent decline in the previous three months.
