[size=75:292mkws1]Sofia echo 16 March 2010
After two years' construction, Sofia's Serdika Center, dubbed the biggest shopping mall in Bulgaria, opened for business on March 16 2010.
Hundreds of people attended the official inauguration of the mall on Sitnyakovo Boulevard in Oborishte borough in the early hours of the day, causing heavy traffic jams in the area.
The total investment for Serdika Center is 220 million euro. Serdika Center is designed to be one of the largest shopping malls in Sofia, encompassing 50 000 sq m of trade area and 35 000 sq m of office space. It will have more than 1600 parking spaces beneath and above the centre.
The project is driven by ECE Project Management Bulgaria and Sparkassen Immobilien AG.
The mall has already rented out close to 98 per cent of its commercial space. The mall will have a golden exterior, something unprecedented for Bulgaria. Significantly, it will not be marketed as a recreation centre, hence the lack of cinemas. There will be restaurants, but the main attraction of the mall will be thematic presentations at specified intervals.
The stores within the mall will have a common strategy, image and policy, offering high class goods and services. Up until this point 80 per cent of the stores and parcels within the mall have already been rented out, or 175 stores out of 220.
Among the tenants will be Zara, Piccadilly, Technopolis, Beauty Zone, MarcO`Polo, New Yorker, Deichman and long-time partner Peek and Cloppenberg, among others.