A slowdown in shopping center development has hit European new supply levels to just 5.9m sqm of newly built retail space last year. This was a considerable retreat from the planned 6.8 million sqm, writes Cushman & Wakefield in its latest Shopping centers development report. Of the 34 markets surveyed, 19 experienced declines, with almost no projects added in the Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia, Croatia and Bulgaria. This year, 6.4 million sqm of new space should come on-line in Europe, to be followed by 4.5 sqm next year. “In the Czech Republic, this year’s plans count on the expected completion of more than 100,000 sqm of new premises. More than half of them belong to the newly opened Nová Karolina Forum in Ostrava. The shopping center will probably remain the last one of such scope for a long time – it covers 58,000 sqm,” says Rostislav Veselý of Cushman & Wakefield’s retail team. In the near future, he expects the opening of 1-2 shopping centers a year to be realistic. In 2012, Breda & Weinstein is the only other major new mall scheduled for completion, together with extensions at Avion in Ostrava, Futura in Hradec Králové and Centrum Zlín.
