Europe’s Shopping Centre Industry Booming

Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief

Here’s some good news for Avanti Screen Media, DigiBoard, Neo Advertising, Vision Media Group and any of the other smaller digital screen players AND of course the Clear Channel, Primesight and Titan’s who operate in the Shopping Centre space…

Europe’s shopping center industry booming.

Europe’s shopping center industry is booming. About 215 million square feet of centers having opened there since 2004, according to data compiled by ICSC and the European Shopping Centre Trust and unveiled at last week’s ICSC European Conference, in Amsterdam. The surge is the result of retail-driven downtown revivals in Western Europe and the development of suburban megamalls in East European countries that are newly members of the European Union. And there is room for more, ICSC Chairman René Tremblay, president of Ivanhoe Cambridge, told attendees. “The study found that more than 500 new centers were planned between 2006 and 2009,” he said. That equates to about 19 million square feet, he said. The majority of those new centers are planned for mature markets in Western Europe, where the development pipeline extends to nearly 400 projects comprising some 14.2 million square feet. About 130 developments will have opened between 2006 and 2009 in former Soviet satellites, nearly doubling the shopping center space in those countries. Record levels of investment drive the proliferation, Tremblay said.

European shopping center investment totaled about $41 billion in 2006. And shopping centers are encouraging cross-border investment on the Continent because they are viewed as a safe vehicle for investors looking beyond their home countries, Tremblay said. The study provides a snapshot of the size, breadth and impact of Europe’s shopping center industry. Europe has about 5,700 shopping centers, encompassing some 1.2 billion square feet of gross leasable area. Nearly a quarter of all retail sales in Europe occur in shopping centers. Shopping center sales there totaled about $798 billion in 2006, and the study anticipates an increase of about $319 billion through 2017. Consumers spent $1,770 per capita in European shopping centers in 2006

Source: SCT Week Vol 13 No. 16


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