John Lewis is to open a 100,000 square foot department store in York in autumn 2013.

The “flexible format” store, as John Lewis described it, is destined for the new Monks Cross development.

It will focus on consumer electronics, home and fashion in a “contemporary retail setting” and be designed to maximise the opportunity for multi-channel sales, the company said.

Flexible format stores, the group explained, average 65,000 to 100,000 square feet, while traditional department stores have a selling space of 132,000 square feet and “At Home” stores around 40,000 square feet.

The company will be spending more than £15m on the new store, which should see the creation of some 300 new jobs.

“'There is a huge potential, and a clear demand from customers, for John Lewis to expand into more key locations in the UK,” said John Lewis managing director Andy Street.

He added that the retailer was still committed to opening more regional full-line shops, but in a city like York the new format offered customers a more convenient way to shop.

“We are committed to continuing to invest in 'bricks and mortar', particularly as we know that new shops stimulate our brand presence and online sales,” he said.

As the store group’s head of format development Tim Harrison said: “These new smaller department stores allow us to open in places we've wanted to trade in for years.

“We have long wanted to have a presence in York but have not been able to find a site or retail-led scheme which we felt was viable and deliverable within our timescales.”

While John Lewis customers in the area travel to its regional stores in Sheffield and Newcastle, the new shop in Monks Cross, he said, will plug the gap in the region.

John Lewis still planned to open five shops in 2012, including John Lewis ‘At Home’ shops in Newbury and Chichester plus the first flexible format department store in Exeter.