Most new shopping centres in Russia and Turkey in 2013

A total of 1.8 million

square meters of new shopping centre space was accrued in Europe in the first half of 2013. Russia and Turkey were the two countries that accounted for almost half of it according to Cushman & Wakefield’s recent “European Shopping Centre Development” report.

The global property consultants blame project delays for the fact that the total for the first half of the year was significantly lower than the 3.4 million square meters achieved in the previous six months but expect a total of 4.9 million square meters to be completed before the end of the year. With 70 percent, most of these new shopping centres will be located in Central and Eastern Europe (including Turkey).

“Emerging Central and Eastern European markets will continue to drive shopping centre development activity. Notwithstanding the several new schemes added and others in the pipeline, countries such as Russia and Turkey will be far from saturated on a per capita basis and in fact still suffer from a shortage of quality space in some markets, highlighting the potential for further development growth in the short let alone the long term,” commented Martin Mahmuti, senior analyst at Cushman & Wakefield.

In terms of total area, Russia came first with 3.2 million square meters under construction that are to be completed by the end of the year. Turkey followed in second place with 422,500 square meters of gross lettable area (GLA) added from January to June 2013. The UK came third with 182,600 square meters and Poland and Germany fourth and fifth, respectively, with a combined GLA of 214,200 square meters.

“Russia demonstrates sustainable growth with demand for quality shopping centres exceeding supply, despite 1.5 million square meters delivered annually. There are large cities with almost no quality retail supply, such as Perm, where there are opportunities to gain a dominant position. In Moscow we still see potential for new development, notwithstanding the pipeline of 1.4 million square meters of new space under construction,” confirmed Maxim Karbasnikoff, head of retail in Russia for Cushman & Wakefield.