Huge sports shop Sports Direct comes to Portsmouth and opens in Cascades Shopping Centre
A HUGE 51,000 sq ft sports shop has opened in Portsmouth city centre in the former BHS unit.
The Portsmouth branch of Sports Direct has moved from Commercial Road to a two-level unit in Cascades Shopping Centre, and now that lockdown is over the all-new store has swung open its doors.
The move into the new unit has seen the one-stop sports store increase its trading space, enabling it to give dedicated floor space to USC and Evans Cycles.
The shop is designed to embody Sports Direct’s ambition to be the ‘home of sports’.
Andrew Philip, centre manager at Cascades, said he was pleased to welcome the chain, which is owned by Mike Ashley and has more than 600 stores worldwide.
He said: ‘I’m really excited to welcome this brand-new Sports Direct unit to Cascades.
‘There’s no doubt that this is a fantastic addition to our retail offering at the shopping centre.
‘Sports Direct is an incredibly popular retailer for our Portsmouth community, and we’re delighted our flagship store is able to offer an experience that goes above and beyond the typical retail offering.
‘I’m sure this is news our local shoppers and visitors are equally as excited about, and we can’t wait to see children and adults alike enjoying the new gaming arena and getting stuck in on the Zwift programme at Evans Cycles. I actually use that programme myself at home – I couldn’t recommend it more.’
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While the ground floor will be home to USC streetwear and fashion brands such as Levi’s, Lacoste, and Calvin Klein, the first floor boasts an impressive Evans Cycles collection complete with a Zwift cycle set-up not dissimilar to Peloton’s offering, allowing customers to test out the bike set-up.
Designed to encourage customers to try out the programme and test the bikes, there is also a bike repair store on-site, helping the customer along every point of their cycling journey.
The first floor has also been graced with the arrival of a new Game store, which last week opened and saw the pre-order of the Xbox Series X and the PlayStation 5, as well as a Belong gaming arena that has been customised with Portsmouth Pirates branding.