Fast Retailing-owned apparel chain Uniqlo will open a new store in Kesennuma, a city in northeastern Japan hit hard by the March 2011 earthquake.

Scheduled to open on November 29, the new store is a response to calls from locals for a bigger store with a wider range of apparel, and replaces a temporary outlet opened as part of the Uniqlo Recovery Assistance Project to help rebuild communities devastated by the earthquake.

At around 530 sqm, the new store is five times the size of the temporary outlet it replaces, and offers some 400 items – a 10-fold increase.

The temporary outlet, which has operated in a prefabricated building in the Akaiwa Suginosawa neighborhood of Kesennuma since March 9, 2012, will close on November 17.