A Quiet Year for the Shopping Center Industry
Only a few large projects will be tackled in 2011 by Austria's shopping center industry; renovation of existing facilities rather prevails.
A Quiet Year for the Shopping Center Industry / Picture: © Vindobona.org
Austria's shopping center and mall industry experiences a period of rest in 2011. After a real round of openings in the second half of 2010, there will be significantly less new stores this year, but refurbishment and expansions of existing centers are on the increase.
In 2012, the with all likelihood last large shopping centers in Austria, will be inaugurated: the G3 Shopping Resort Gerasdorf with a utilization surface of over 70.000m2, and the large Bahnhofs-EKZ Wien-Mitte with a surface of around 30.000m2, announced the ACSC (Austrian Council of Shopping Centers).
"Hereby continues the trend of recent years, when only half of the newly added sales space of 150,000m2 was created in newly built shopping centers and retail parks, whereas the second half was created by the revitalization and expansion of existing centers", says ACSC Coordinator Dr. Stephan Mayer-Heinisch about the latest developments.
The BahnhofCity Wien West, which is scheduled to open in November, will provide about 17.000m2 retail space, and is the largest new retail space that goes into operation this year. "It will be interesting to see how the new type of train station - shopping center is accepted in Austria", says Mayer-Heinisch.
"Much more is happening this year concerning the revitalization of existing shopping centers and retail parks, which are often associated with extensions. On one hand, refurbishments are on hand due to the aging and natural lifespan of many commercial properties, but on the other also because of some major changes in the needs of many large retailers "adds ACSC Secretary General Dr. Sabine Schober. "The expanding chain stores have become much more selective," states Mayer-Heinisch.