Real estate machine

Tarasy Zamkowe in Lublin has a leasable area of 38,000 sqm and 125 shops (this will eventually be increased to 150). “We hope that the centre will have a monthly footfall of 800,000 people and that the return on the investment will amount to 15 pct per year,” said Eduard Zehetner, the president of the board of Immofinanz Group. In spite of the fact that the mall is Immofinanz’s debut development inPoland when it comes to medium-sized facilities, the company has extensive retail experience in the country. In 2006 it purchased one of the largest Polish malls –SilesiaCityCenter inKatowice (with an area of 89,000 and almost 340 stores) from TriGranit Development Corporation for EUR 170 mln. After seven years of managing the complex the company finally decided to sell the project to a consortium made up of Allianz and ECE Projektmanagement (and other undisclosed partners) for EUR 412 mln. Immofinanz also has experience when it comes to extension projects. During its ownership ofSilesiaCityCenter it increased its leasable area by 20,000 sqm with a new section opened in October 2011. The company has clearly taken a liking toPoland because it is now planning an intensive programme of development on the retail market.

Time for other formats

“We adjust our operations to local market conditions. Thus our decision to launch the Vivo! concept onto the market, which was established particularly with Polish conditions in mind, as well as the smaller Stop.Shop centres. We have observed that the largest cities are rather saturated with retail, but there is a shortage of smaller formats such as retail parks and convenience centres. We want to exploit this,” says Eduard Zehetner. And despite the fact that there is set to be a change of the guard in terms of the position of the president of the company’s management board, the direction of Immofinanz’s development in the retail sector has already been laid out. At the end of 2014 the first Vivo! centre was opened in Piła. “We have positioned this format between the already familiar Stop.Shop retail park concept and our largest shopping centres. Vivo! is characterised by one-storey development and a strong emphasis on fashion and entertainment. The centres will mostly be developed in medium-sized towns in Central and Eastern Europe, with populations of 40,000 to 100,000 and a catchment area of at least 200,000 people,” explains Eduard Zehetner. In the next 3–4 years the plan is to open 5–6 such centres in Poland. The next two are under construction in Stalowa Wola and Krosno. Meanwhile, the development of Stop.Shop retail parks, which are located in towns of 30,000 to 150,000 inhabitants, is to speed up considerably. Fifteen Polish Stop.Shops are to be opened in 3–4 years and eighty to a hundred of them across Europe.

Pragmatism above all

Tarasy Zamkowe in Lublin, which has been designed by the Stelmach i Partnerzy architectural studio, is a unique building. It is the only retail facility in Poland to have been awarded a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ certificate for its design stage. And it was one of the first ones to invite customers and locals to... the roof, where a viewing terrace filled with greenery has been created. This has not been done merely out of the company’s respect for the urban environment (which was a condition for development in the centre near the city’s Castle and Old Town), but another factor has been the estimated selling prices of centres that hold such prestigious ecological certificates. “Our activities could be described as a real estate machine. We develop top class properties, we manage them to increase their value to the maximum, and we subsequently sell them. Each property in our portfolio is for sale, but none has any deadline in this respect,” explains the president of
Immofinanz. The company also has a pragmatic approach to how new centres function, since this can also translate into pushing up their value. For this purpose it has established a team of specialists in Vienna, whose job it is to gain experience and understanding of all the most modern forms of omni-channel retail across Europe. “The first results of this work will be visible in Tarasy Zamkowe in April. We are preparing an application designed to lead customers around the centre and make it possible for them to access the offer of our stores more easily. So far I cannot say anything more on this subject,” Eduard Zehetner reveals. Immofinanz is aiming to keep one step ahead of its competition, in the hope that such an approach will bring measurable benefits in the future.