SKIMS took Ted Baker's flagship. Next tripled its Bluewater store.

Next opens a store of about 132,000 square feet at Bluewater on July 30, in the former House of Fraser unit: Bluewater's first new anchor since the center opened in 1999. On July 24, SKIMS opened its first permanent UK store in Ted Baker's former Regent Street flagship. Inditex is preparing three UK openings for its value chain Lefties, beginning in August.

The largest retail floorplates are moving to different operating models: multi-category megastores, digital-first flagships and large value formats.

The store opening on July 30 is the largest across the Next portfolio, per store manager Terry Wetherell, cited by Retail Gazette. Next is relocating from a 44,600 square foot unit into about 132,000 square feet inside the same center, with expanded womenswear, menswear, childrenswear, a larger homeware floor and an in-store Costa cafe. Bath & Body Works takes an adjacent 2,000 square foot unit.

Bluewater opened in 1999 with its anchor roster set, and no new name had joined it since. The former House of Fraser unit was designed for a department store carrying multiple categories under one nameplate. Bluewater did not subdivide the box. Next expanded into almost all of it, combining fashion, home and food under one brand.

SKIMS opened at 245-247 Regent Street on July 24: 12,000 square feet on a corner site, the brand's largest store in Europe, on the former Ted Baker site, per Retail Gazette. The interior is by Rafael de Cardenas, with a Vanessa Beecroft sculpture at the entrance and the NikeSKIMS line in the assortment.

SKIMS built its UK reach through e-commerce, wholesale and temporary formats before committing to Regent Street. Its first permanent store did not test a secondary location. It went directly into one of London's most established retail addresses.

In the United States, off-price continues to expand at scale. Ross opened 47 stores in June and July and plans roughly 110 openings in 2026. Inditex is making a similar large-format commitment in Britain.

Lefties will open at Liverpool ONE in late August, Lakeside in early October and Metrocentre in November. Metrocentre confirms that its store will occupy 50,000 square feet. The stores will use RFID self-checkouts and automated hanger-sorting systems already deployed across the brand's European network.

Next, SKIMS and Lefties sit at different price points, but all three are committing to large physical formats.

→ Sleep Country and Sleep Number. A $701 million court-supervised asset sale out of Chapter 11 hands roughly 570 US stores to the Canadian chain, for a combined network above 800 locations. The transaction is expected to close by July 31. Integrating and optimizing the combined network is the larger project.

→ Mavis and Pep Boys. Roughly $700 million for nearly 800 locations, with the owned real estate staying at Icahn Enterprises. Operations and property are being priced separately.

→ Eataly, Tysons Corner Center. First location in the Washington, DC region, taking two floors of the former American Girl space, opening 2027. A two-floor food market replacing a specialty retail box.

→ Karolinka, Opole. NEPI Rockcastle approved an 11,000 square meter extension of a roughly 70,000 square meter center, adding about 30 stores. Construction is scheduled to start in autumn 2026.

House of Fraser's Bluewater box reopens as Next. Ted Baker's Regent Street flagship reopens as SKIMS. Lefties is entering three of Britain's largest retail destinations.

The leasing question is broader than which department store replaces another. The same large spaces can now support single-brand megastores, digital-first flagships and value formats built around high throughput.

The floorplates remain. The tenant model changes.

Mati Brooks,

Editor, Malls Money

Malls.com tracks malls, brands, store openings, and retail expansion signals across 50+ countries.