Testing the water before taking the plunge

The recent high-profile openings of Wola Park and the Galeria Mokotów extension in Warsaw, brought with them the arrival of a number of retailers, who were exposing themselves to the Polish market for the first time. The tendency among these,  for the moment anyway, is to tread carefully rather than unleash themselves aggressively onto the local market. "I wouldn't really call it a big rush," says Magdalena Gniazdowska, Senior Negotiator of Cushman & Wakefield H&B's retail department, of foreign retailers' desire to gain a foothold in Poland. "As far as middle-sized spaces and anchors are concerned there have been no real major changes, [in the Polish market], but there will be," she continues. The arrivals of clothing shops such as Lene V, Kenvelo and Peek & Cloppenburg for example, don't represent for her any radical sea change, but once the much anticipated Złote Tarasy multi-functional centre opens in 2005, between the Holiday Inn