In a thicket of parks

When the retail park scene first arrived in Poland, consumers had completely different expectations of them. According to Katarzyna Zielińska, the marketing and PR manager at Redkom Development: “What was important for customers at first was that retail parks had a grocery store, a chemist, a drugstore and some sort of multi-sector outlet, which would generally be some kind of discount store. Retail parks were synonymous with quick shopping as opposed to those long strolls around a mall. They were an alternative for those who didn’t enjoy shopping for hours and, indeed, a few years ago there were enough of them. Customers still want to do their shopping quickly, but they also need more variety. As a result, their leasing departments are now devising tenant mixes that find a golden mean between the here and the now with an attractive range of stores for future customers. The goal is the same. A new centre has to not only be somewhere to do the everyday shopping but also nee