The family behind the award-winning ‘Arboretum’ home and garden centre in Leighlinbridge, Co Carlow, has agreed a deal in principle to set up a second outlet. The new outlet will be based at the National Garden Exhibition Centre in Kilquade, Co Wicklow.
Arboretum will take over the exhibition centre as part of the deal, bringing the brand closer to the Dublin market. The Doyle family hopes to be trading there within months.
The family will invest around €2m to purchase and open the site, with another €2m earmarked for further development.
In 2014 the Carlow store had turnover of €6m, about a third of which came through food sales – an increasingly important part of Arboretum’s business.
Chief executive Barry Doyle told the Irish Independent that the family wants to make the new store a “destination site” including a cafe serving home-cooked food.
“The plant retailing that we do we think will stand us out from the crowd,” Mr Doyle said.
“All the ancillary products that go along like kitchen floor and stuff like that that we’ve added on, we can maybe in time add them into the Kilquade site,” he added.
Arboretum won ‘National Store of the Year 2015′ at the recent Retail Excellence Ireland awards.
Source: REI – Arboretum Owners To Open Second Outlet, Bringing Brand Closer To
