Educational toys brand makes UK debut at Norwich’s Castle Quarter
Educational STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) brand Engino has made its UK debut at Castle Quarter in Norwich.
The brand has taken 4,405 sq ft of space across Units 54 and 55 on a ten-year lease.
Whilst also selling Engino’s range of STEM toys aimed at children from 18 months upwards, the store is home to an education and entertainment area, enabling visitors to test out the brand’s unique building system.
Launched in Cyprus in 2004, Engino is a modular plastic system designed to enable children to construct vehicles, buildings, and robotic machines. Its products are available from 57 locations across the United States and Europe.
Castle Quarter has recently repositioned towards more social, leisure, and lifestyle operators whilst retaining a traditional retail core. This has brought new brands to the destination such as Boom Battle Bar, Putt Putt Noodle and Escape Hunt. New dining options have also arrived, such as independent restaurants Silhouette and Hank’s Dirty, and the ‘market hall’ style Castle Social. Vue has also committed to a major refurbishment of its eight-screen cinema at the destination.
In 2023, visitor numbers at Castle Quarter grew by 9% year-on-year, whilst 75% of occupiers posted higher trading figures compared to 2022.
Will Ashdown, asset manager at RivingtonHark, said: “Engino’s choice of Castle Quarter for its UK debut reflects its desirability as a location for innovative new brands and concepts, and highlights the shifting profile of the destination following the repositioning. The improvements we are seeing in footfall and turnover illustrate the success of the pivot towards social leisure and lifestyle operators, which is bringing new visitors to the scheme in ever greater numbers. Castle Quarter is the first scheme to successfully shift in this way, and our strategy of providing the retailers, operators and options that people want is demonstrating a new role for city centre destinations.”
Roche and Jamieson Mills are the retained agents on Castle Quarter.