HIGH Street store New Look is to expand its presence in the revamped Market Place with a new standalone menswear store.

The new shop will open in mid-July and negotiations to rent out the two neighbouring vacant plots have also been finalised. They will open later in the year but Market Place is remaining tight-lipped on who will join the menswear store.

New Look put in an offer to Market Place for the vacant store, which is located to the right of River Island on the centre’s ground floor, after women’s clothing store Roman’s lease ended at the centre.

Creating standalone menswear stores is a new venture for the New Look brand. After trialling the concept at its flagship Oxford Street store in London, the South African-owned fashion retailer announced a new focus on menswear fashion in August last year.

The Bolton store will be only the ninth standalone New Look Men store in the UK, with stores in Wigan and the Trafford Centre being the only others in the North West. New Look have indicated they will open up to 20 more new menswear stores in 2016.

The opening means that the womenswear section of the current store will also increase considerably in size.

Market Place manager Nikki Wilson-Cook said: “We’re delighted, it can only be seen as positive news. New Look Men is new to the UK so to be one of the first places to get one is great.”

Momentum is building at the centre, which is in the final stages of its £19 million redevelopment, with new restaurants and bars opening in March at the Vaults and Clarks announcing last week that they would be the third store to relocate from the Crompton Place to the Market Place.

The current New Look store also moved from the Crompton Place alongside menswear retailer Scotts in November 2015.

The centre says that negotiations to fill the other vacant plots are also going well. “We’re talking to people all the time and negotiations are going very well. The retailer’s numbers are very encouraging and the feedback has been nothing but positive,” said Ms Wilson-Cook.

She said that the new refurbished Victorian vaults have attracted visitors to the centre: “Footfall is also increasingly. On average footfall has been falling in the UK but we’re seeing increases in the double digits week on week.”

Although a completion date for the entire redevelopment hasn’t been settled on, Market Place says that the new nine-screen cinema will be open by the end of the year.