Gold Plaza developer: Only 5 out of 120 projected malls going ahead

Hungary-based Futureal has the Gold Plaza mall underway, which is set for completion next year, in the wake of investments worth 97 million euros. Company representatives say no other mall is being developed in the surrounding counties, which could lead to the ongoing project attracting visitors from a more extensive area than originally thought. “There are very few developments on the market currently. Out of the 100-120 announced projects, only 3-5 have funding available and are in progress. This means our catchment area expands because nothing is happening in town (no other mall is being built i.e.), or in the northern area of the country, for that matter. Originally we were expecting to have a 500,000-visitor target, but in fact we are talking about 1.2 million,” says Eran Socher, managing director of Futureal, who also relies on visitors from Satu Mare and from northern Salaj county in order to be able to attract at least 20,000 people to the mall per day.