Immofinanz building another three retail parks in Serbia – EUR 30 million to be invested in new Stop Shop facilities in Pozarevac, Lazarevac and Vrsac

Austria's Immofinanz has announced that it will build three new retail parks in Srbija next year, in Pozarevac, Lazarevac and Vrsac. New Stop Shop parks will have a total of nearly 23,800 square meters of rent space.

Stop Shop in Pozarevac will have nearly 7,000 square meters of rent space and 230 parking spaces, whereas the retail park in Lazarevac will spread across around 8,600 m2 with 190 parking spaces. The third announced Stop Shop will be raised in Vrsac and will contain 8,200 square meters of rent space and 330 parking spaces. According to the plans, each of the three facilities will contain 22 stores.

The facilities are in various stages of planning and construction, and it was announced that all three projects will be completed in 2017, they say at Immofinanz. The total value of the investment in the three facilities has been estimated at around EUR 30 million.

Darko Grizelj, manager of Immofinanz in Serbia, says for eKapija that future renters have already shown great interest in retail facilities in the new retail parks.

He adds that the company is already considering further investments in our country, announcing new retail parks in other cities of Serbia.

Regarding Belgrade and Novi Sad, Grizelj says that “it's not certain how much space is left and how much need there is for building new retail centers, following the recent announcements” in the biggest city in Vojvodina.

Let us remind that the South African company Nepi has bought the land at SPENS and announced the construction of a large mall in the city.

The plans of Immofinanz regarding Belgrade are primarily directed at the city's periphery, where there's room and need for facilities of this kind. Nevertheless, Grizelj doesn't reject the possibility of the company's construction of a Vivo! shopping mall in the capital of Serbia, if the conditions for it are met.

Office space, which Immofinanz builds through its Myhive brand, is so far not in focus in Serbia, Grizelj adds.

COO of Immofinanz, Dietmar Reindl, stated that the company, which had up till then opened three retail parks in Serbia – in Cacak, Nis and Valjevo, owned 67 retail parks in eight countries at the moment and that its goal was to increase the number to over 100 in the years to come.

Reindl also said that the company's real estate activities were focused primarily on retail, office and logistics segments in eight main regional markets in Europe – Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Poland and Moscow – in which Immofinanz owns a real estate portfolio worth nearly EUR 5.4 billion and which encompasses more than 360 facilities.

M.V.