PRINT THIS STORY:

CHANGE TEXT SIZE:

IN BRIEF

Rodamco’s Prague plans

Rotterdam, Netherlands-based Rodamco Europe is building what will be its third mall in Prague, Czech Republic. The Arkády Pankrác shopping center will provide a total 429,000 square feet of retail space when it opens in the fourth-quarter of 2007. Rodamco Europe’s other Prague malls are Cerny Most and, opening Nov. 9, the Chodov shopping center. Arkády Pankrác is going up in the Pankrác district, on top of a metro station in a densely populated and affluent residential area.

Russia beckons retailers

More international retail chains are setting their sights on Russia. U.K.-based Marks & Spencer, which has 375 stores in its homeland and 155 in 28 other countries, will soon open its first store in Moscow’s Mega mall. British supermarket chains ASDA, Sainsbury’s and Tesco, French chain Casino and Germany’s REWE and Tengelmann are also considering opening stores in Russia. A.T. Kearney, an international management consulting firm, has placed Russia at the top of a list of the most attractive countries for retail investors. Russia will be Europe’s largest grocery market by 2020, says a report by market information firm IGD. Today, the report says, Russia is fifth in Europe after Germany, France, Britain and Italy.

Crate & Barrel goes German

Otto Versand, the world’s biggest mail order company, plans to expand its brick-and-mortar retailing businesses. The Hamburg, Germany-based company, which owns a 60 percent stake in Crate & Barrel, says it will establish up to 30 units of the upscale home store concept in Germany, the U.K. and Japan. The company says the German market is wide open for Crate & Barrel because it currently lacks any comparable retailers.

The North Face expands

U.S.-based The North Face is opening five new sporting goods stores in Europe during this year’s second half, bringing its total to 11 there. The new stores are opening in the cities of Copenhagen, Denmark; Madrid, Spain; Manchester, England; Munich, Germany; and Val d’Isère, France. The North Face store in Manchester, opening this month, is the company’s largest in Europe, at over 15,000 square feet. But consumers should come equipped for conditions: It will also be the first North Face store to incorporate a refrigerated 79-foot ice-climbing wall.

London lures shoppers

City officials are preparing a multimillion-dollar publicity campaign to lure shoppers back to central London and revamp the retail sales that suffered following the terrorist attacks in July. The campaign will target Britons outside London who have stayed away from the West End theater and shopping district, which is home to 10 percent of the city’s shops. The London Retail Consortium says stores in central London recorded their worst-ever sales drops in July.

Pru sells four U.K. centers

Prudential Financial is selling four shopping centers in the U.K. for about £500 million ($900 million). The centers are Luton’s Arndale center; The Belfry, in Redhill, Surrey; Kirkgate Centre, in Bradford; and the Pavillions, in London. In March Prudential sold half its 35 percent stake in Bluewater to the Singapore government for $585 million. The centers amount to a total of 1.7 million square feet of retail space.

El Corte Inglés hits Rome

Spanish department store chain El Corte Inglés says it will open a new store in its home country and that it also plans to expand in Portugal. The chain says these moves are meant to combat slowing growth in Spain.

U.K. watchdog bites

Britain’s Office of Fair Trading says British shoppers overpaid millions of pounds for their purchases because of the excessive fees banks charge retailers, which are then passed on to consumers. The consumer watchdog concluded after an investigation lasting more than five years that a pact between Mastercard and Britain’s leading banks governing these fees is illegal. More than 20 million Britons have Mastercard accounts on which they made more than 700 million purchases last year, totaling some £40 billion (about $72 billion).

Polish mall opens

Polish development firm Alfa Centrum is opening a mall by the same name in Olsztyn, Poland, this month. The €28 million ($34 million) center will contain about 80 stores, including an H&M, an RTV Euro AGD and a Smyk.

Stockholm mall grows

Rodamco Europe Nordic says it will expand the retail space at Forum Nacka shopping center in Stockholm and build 260 apartments next to it. The expansion will double the mall’s store count from 73 to 142. Work began this fall and the developers expect to wrap up by the fall of 2008.

Amsterdam’s Magna Plaza sold

Uni-Invest Holding has sold the Netherlands’ landmark Magna Plaza, the former main post office that was turned into a 6,500-square-meter (70,000-square-foot) shopping center in the late 1990s. It contains about 40 stores. Akron Group bought the property on behalf of AIB Private Banking, the wealth management division of Allied Irish Banks, for €48 million ($59 million). Uni-Invest is owned by a group of investors organized by Lehman Bros. Real Estate Partners.

Fire destroys Dubai mall

A fire gutted the Oasis Centre in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in early September during renovations. News reports say the fire caused some $98 million in damages to the center, which is owned by Emirates-based Landmark. According to the reports, Dubai authorities blame contractors they say disconnected fire alarms, delaying firefighters’ response time.

Online retailer relaunched

After nearly a year offline, Hungarian online retailer Fotexnet resumed operations as an online mall, according to the MTI Hungarian News Agency. Consumers can now order goods from about 40 retailers through Fotexnet and get delivery directly from the merchants. Previously, Fotexnet sold goods directly to consumers and also delivered the products.

FirstPro looks overseas

FirstPro Shopping Centres, Toronto, which owns more than 130 shopping centers in Canada, is looking to expand its reach in Mexico, Europe and Asia. The company has a 10-year plan that involves the same kinds of open-air, big-box shopping centers it operates in Canada, most of them anchored by Wal-Mart stores, according to published reports. Wal-Mart is FirstPro’s main retail development partner, but company officials would not say whether the retailer has agreed to anchor FirstPro centers outside Canada.

Next stop Fitmart?

Officials in Koronadal City, the Philippines, are negotiating with the Fitmart Group, which owns the Fitmart Mall, to use part of the shopping center’s property to build the city’s first public transit terminal. Koronadal City, the provincial capital of South Cotabato, is experiencing rapid population growth, and city officials hope public transit will ease congestion.

© 2008 ICSC. All rights reserved. | Terms and Conditions | Privacy Policy | Contact ICSC | ICSC Home |