Herbert Group is planning a new retail unit at Forestside shopping centre in Belfast, the latest phase of a redevelopment programme that signals continued capital works spending by one of Northern Ireland's fastest-growing retail landlords.

Forestside, a 336,000 sq ft shopping centre in Newtownbreda, south Belfast, has been owned by Herbert Group since its £42m (€49.1m) acquisition in 2023 and has since added a food hub, new retail and hospitality units, and an extended terrace.

Herbert Group, the Belfast-based property investment vehicle of Michael and Lesley Herbert, has expanded rapidly since selling its 146-outlet KFC franchise in 2020, buying Bloomfield Shopping Centre in Bangor for £22m (€25.7m) in 2024 and Abbey Centre in Newtownabbey for £58.8m (€68.8m) in 2025.

The unit forms part of a wider leasing push: a collaboration between Knotts Bakery and Lazy Claire Patisserie is set to open in Forestside's extended terrace, which already includes a Hotel Chocolat and a Søstrene Grene store.

Consolidating three shopping centres into one ownership group within roughly two years has created a landlord large enough to run parallel capital works programmes rather than a single one-off refurbishment, particularly one built, like Herbert Group's, on a KFC franchise sale rather than institutional real estate capital.

The pattern is visible across the wider portfolio: Abbey Centre in Newtownabbey has its own planning application in for a six-deck, 276-space multi-storey car park alongside four new retail units and three café or restaurant units, running in parallel with the smaller Forestside unit and Bloomfield's continued trading.

The combined programme points to sustained, if modest, demand for retail fit-out and civil works contractors across Northern Ireland's shopping centre stock, work that tends to run in smaller, staggered packages rather than single large contracts, and the group's other diversification, including its 2021 purchase of Barry's Amusements in Portrush, suggests a broader appetite for capital-intensive leisure and retail assets across Northern Ireland.

For the sector, the signal is about consolidation rather than scale: as private investors roll up regional shopping centres, capital works spending follows ownership change, giving contractors a steadier pipeline of smaller retail and car park projects to bid for.

Source: Belfast Telegraph / Belfast News Letter