Eastbourne shopping centre, The Beacon, put up for sale – here's what we know

Savills, on behalf of Legal & General Investment Management, has brought to market the freehold interest in The Beacon, a prime retail and leisure destination in Eastbourne with a quoting price of £80 million.

The Beacon, a 497,337 sq ft mixed-use scheme and is currently anchored by a Sainsbury’s supermarket, as well as a modern Foodhall offer within the M&S. Other retailers on-site include Primark, H&M, Sports Direct, Next and Boots, alongside F&B and leisure occupiers Nando’s, Chuck and Blade Burgers and Boom Battle Bar, generating a total gross income of £8.423 million per annum.

Last year the scheme also opened FOUNDRY, an innovative 15,000 sq ft co-working and incubation space for local businesses, providing a new reason for people to visit The Beacon. Due to its popularity, FOUNDRY is in the process of extending the first floor office accommodation into the ground floor, as well as undertaking improvements to the existing ground floor pop-up retail space.

Performance at The Beacon, both operationally and by tenants, is exceeding pre-pandemic levels and continues to show year-on-year improvement.

Mark Garmon-Jones, Head of Shopping Centre Investment at Savills, comments: “The sale of The Beacon provides a fantastic opportunity to acquire the freehold of Eastbourne’s primary retailing destination. The scheme, which has a strong and evolving tenant mix and is over 90% occupied is diversifying to provide consumers and occupiers with the spaces they want and need, including L&G’s jointly-managed FOUNDRY concept.

"Given its excellent credentials, we anticipate receiving considerable interest from a range of buyers.”