McArthurglen, Inter Ikea Centre join forces in Poland

Shopping centre developer and manager Inter Ikea Centre Group is teaming up with designer outlet specialist McArthurGlen in a joint venture aimed at builidng a McArthurGlen-branded designer outlet village in the Targowek area of Warsaw, Poland. This is the first project to be carried out by the partnership, Mc ArthurGlen said in a statement.

'We are very excited to expand our offering into Poland, in a location with existing critical mass of strong retail, excellent access, customer traffic, and visibility. This project is one of many developments McArthurGlen has scheduled for continental Europe over the next few years,' said Gary Bond, chief executive officer of McArthurGlen Development.

The new designer outlet will consist of 30,000 m² of Gross Lettable Area with a food court area and will be developed over a two-phase construction period on land forming part of Inter Ikea Centre Group's existing retail park, Targowek Park Handlowy. The retail park currently incorporates an Ikea, a Decathlon, an Electro World, a Domoteka furniture department store, a food store totalling 80,000 m² and other stand-alone furnishing retailers, .

Mikael Ebe, development director of Inter Ikea Centre Group, said: 'The retail park at Targowek is already very successful. This joint venture with McArthurGlen enables us to evolve the offer and enhance the retail experience for new and current customers.'

In addition to the Targorwek project in Poland, Inter Ikea Centre Group and McArthurGlen are exploring other similar joint-venture partnership opportunities throughout Europe.

Since introducing outlet retailing to Europe in 1995, McArthurGlen Group has become one of Europe's leading developers, owners and managers of designer outlets. Its current portfolio of 16 designer outlet villages across the UK and Europe comprises more than 400,000 m² of retail space. The group's strategies for growth is expected to add a further 300,000 m² GLA by 2012, including five new European outlet developments by year-end 2010.

Inter IKEA Centre Group (IICG) is owned by IKEA Group and Inter IKEA Group. With headquarters in Copenhagen, Denmark, the company develops, owns, manages over 700,000 m² of floor space in Austria, Germany, Poland, the Czech Rep., the Slovak Rep., Spain, Portugal, and France. The company plans to double its portfolio over the next five to seven years.