Sports Direct open their third flagship store

We said Hiya to Manchester!

We are excited to announce our involvement in the opening of the third Sports Direct flagship store in Manchester Arndale for Frasers Group where we project managed the store design, concept development, material procurement, fit out and overall delivery for the most advanced store to date. The inclusion of digital, dedicated customer zones and interactive experiences, not forgetting significant brand personalisation elevates this concept further than what has already been achieved in the previous Sports Direct Flagships in Oxford Street and Birmingham New Street.

The 50,000 sq. ft retail space spans five floors and is home to not only Sports brands but lifestyle too with a whole floor dedicated to USC which is the largest space given to the brand in any store thus far. We worked alongside our supply partner SmithBrewer who designed the space for this new USC concept which also includes a first-time installation for the Vans brand. The top floor is home to Game and Belong with an arena for keen gamers to share their passion with each other.

We led the design team on behalf of the client (The One Off for Sports Direct and SmithBrewer for USC) to assist Frasers Group with space planning ensuring the customer journey was effective and interesting as a destination for sportswear.

The One Off were instrumental in designing new concepts – a multi-brand running area where Sports Direct have partnered with safe size, a new look kid’s area, a swim concept for Speedo and an elevated football area.

Brand personalisation was significant in bringing each individual brand personality to life from the use of digital plinths in Under Amour to dedicated merchandised areas with illumination and artwork for Nike, Adidas, and Puma.

The development of digital in this flagship is substantial and is the most ever implemented in a Sports Direct store to date. We partnered with Inurface Media who supplied all of the digital interface across the floors. 103 digital screens were installed in total including NFC tap guides put in place allow for interaction for the customer between in-store and online. Digital wayfinding enhanced the customer journey, especially across such a large retail space.

We would also like to acknowledge the collaboration and effort received from our other partners who worked alongside us to bring this project to life. Thank you to Cube Architects, The One Off, SmithBrewer, Whitebox Interiors, Whitebox electrical, Inurface Media and Fagerhult.

Frasers Group are continuing to change the retail landscape and we are pleased to continue our working relationship with them, delivering projects and helping the brand to achieve their store programme and elevation strategy.