Plaza Centers gets go-ahead for new Belgrade mall

CEE retail developer Plaza Centers has received a building permit to develop Belgrade Plaza, a 32,000 m2 shopping and entertainment centre.

Located adjacent to the Danube River in old Belgrade, the new development will include around 110 retail units, a supermarket and a multi-screen cinema complex.

Plaza said it is in the final stages of agreeing bank financing and construction is expected to commence by the end of 2015, with completion targeted for the first half of 2017.

The company also expects to receive the construction permit for another CEE project, Timisoara Plaza in Romania in the coming weeks. Bank financing has been agreed, amounting to 65% of the project cost, and construction is also expected to commence here by the end of 2015, pending permit approval.

'Belgrade Plaza is one of our key development projects and represents a significant opportunity for the city, providing a modern shopping and leisure centre in the heart of the old town, in a capital city that we consider to be undersupplied in terms of modern retail spaces,' said Ran Shtarkman, President and CEO of Plaza Centers. 'We are in advance stages of agreeing bank financing and are keen to replicate the success of Plaza's Kragujevac mall in Serbia which opened in 2012 and was subsequently sold in 2014.'