București Mall builds second extension for H&M

Swedish-held H&M, the world’s biggest clothing retailer, which is set to open stores in April 2011 in Bucharest’s leading shopping centres, already has the commercial spaces ready for setting up.

While most developers relocated stores to make room for the Swedes, București Mall has begun construction of a new extension, especially for the retailer.
“We decided to build a new extension because București Mall has a nearly 100% occupancy rate, so we could not allocate space in the already existing infrastructure. The investment in building the new wing of București Mall, which will accommodate a 1,300 square-metre H&M store belongs to Anchor Grup, which did not wish to reveal the value of the investment, but said the new wing required the relocation of a coffee shop. The first extension of București Mall was inaugurated in 2007 and entailed 20 million-euro investments in a 9,000 square-metre space.
H&M will open six stores at the same time, five of which in Bucharest and one in Brașov, which means an around 10,000 square-metre overall sales area.
Anchor Grup has also signed a contract with the Swedish retailer for Plaza Romania, with the 1,300 square-metre store to be located on the ground floor of the mall.