Plaza wins tender to develop major retail centre in Poland

Israeli retail property developer Plaza Centers announced that it has won a competitive tender and acquired a site from PKS Kielce, the local branch of the Polish National Bus Company, to develop a major new shopping and entertainment centre in Kielce, Poland. The project is expected to have a gross development budget of EUR 90 mln.

Construction is expected to start in the middle of 2009, with completion targeted for early 2011. On completion, the scheme will have a Gross Built Area of 57,000 m² with 40,000 m² of Gross Leasable Area, and approximately 1,200 car-parking spaces. Plaza said it will target a mixture of domestic and high-profile international retailers and entertainment operators as potential tenants for the centre.

The new centre will be located on a 30,000 m² plot alongside a major road and two kilometers from the heart of Kielce. Kielce is located in Central Poland on the main motorway linking Warsaw and Krakow.

The company said this is the first new project it has secured in Poland since listing on the Warsaw Stock Exchange in October 2007. Plaza has been highly active in CEE and Poland since 1996. It has built, managed and sold a total of seven shopping centres located across Poland and is due to start construction on a further three shopping and entertainment centres as well as a mixed-use project in Lodz.

Ran Shtarkman, President and CEO of Plaza Centers, said: 'Kielce is a fast-growing city which currently has only very limited high-quality retail outlets or entertainment facilities to offer. We believe our skills and experience in developing large-scale developments should enable us to create significant value, both for our shareholders and for the centre’s tenants and visitors, by attracting a range of high quality international and domestic tenants and thereby unlocking Kielce’s potential as a retail destination in Central Poland.'