Atrium buys mall in Wroclaw for €152m

Atrium Real Estate has bought the Galeria Dominikañska shopping centre in the Polish city of Wroclaw for €152 mln.

The CEE shopping centre investor-developer acquired the mall from a joint venture comprising the Otto family - majority owner of German mall developer ECE - and Deutsche EuroShop.

Atrium said it will finance the acquisition from existing cash resources. The transaction is subject to approval by the Polish anti-monopoly authorities. ECE will continue to manage the shopping centre, working closely alongside Atrium’s in-house team of retail experts.

Cushman & Wakefield and law firm Dentons advised the buyer in the transaction.

Galeria Dominikañska is a fully occupied, Grade A shopping centre which comprises around 32,900 m2 of gross lettable area spread over three levels and across 102 units.

Opened in 2001, it is the leading shopping centre in Wroclaw, Poland’s fourth-largest city and capital of the Silesia region, which has a population of some 630,000 inhabitants.

The mall is anchored by a Carrefour supermarket and a Media Markt and houses a wide range of international and domestic retail brands, together with a food and hospitality offering. The centre includes over 900 parking spaces.

The average duration of all the lease contracts is over six years.

Atrium said the acquisition is in line with its aim of acquiring prime, income-producing shopping centres in the major cities of Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia, which have the strongest economies in the CEE region.

Commenting on the acquisition, Rachel Lavine, CEO of Atrium said: ‘Galeria Dominikañska is an important acquisition for us, being a large, well-established and dominant shopping centre which is in a prime location in one of the major cities of Poland, our most important market.

‘The transaction allows us to start putting the proceeds of our recent Eurobond placement to effective use while increasing Atrium’s weighting to Poland, the CEE’s largest economy, to over 50%, and taking its exposure to A- rated or above countries to above 75%.’