MELBOURNE: David Jones has exited Westfield Fountain Gate seven years on from the time it commenced lease termination negotiations with the shopping centre giant.
The department store announced that under an agreement with Westfield Trust, it will receive funding for capital expenditure in Westfield centres in excess of what David Jones paid Westfield during its last Fountain Gate lease agreement in 2003.
David Jones will also receive an option to open a new department store at the Westfield Innaloo development in the northern corridor of Perth.
David Jones CEO Paul Zahra said he was pleased to have terminated the lease “on acceptable commercial and strategic terms”.
“We have known since our 2003 Strategic Review that the demography of the Fountain Gate centre is not aligned with our target customer and does not fit in with our new store strategy, which is to open high value stores in high value locations,” Zahra said.
“We are also pleased with the option to open a new store at Innaloo located in the high growth, high value northern corridor of Perth.
“This coupled with our proposed new store in Whitford, also in northern Perth, means David Jones will establish a dominant presence in one of the fastest growing, high value markets in Australia.”
David Jones commenced trading in Fountain Gate in 1996.