Businessman Iulian Dascălu, owner of Iulius Group and the biggest Romanian shopping centre owner, has struck a deal with Auchan hypermarket chain to open a new store in a space developed by Iulius Group within Palas real estate project in Iași, located behind the Culture Palace.
Dascălu and Auchan have thus extended the collaboration for
Iulius Mall shopping centres in Timișoara, Cluj, and Suceava, which
make the French hypermarket chain Dascălu’s main tenant in terms of
the area occupied in his shopping centres.
The Palas project in Iași entails a 260 million-euro investment set
to be completed in the autumn of next year. Auchan and Iulius Group
representatives did not provide further details on the contract,
with a joint press conference to be organised over the next few
days.
Auchan is one of the retailers that did not see a heavy expansion
in the period of economic boom, but the French have announced plans
to double the number of stores, to 14, by the end of 2012. The
French have other contracts signed for Constanța’s Polus Center,
for Coresi Brașov, and for Pallady Shopping Center in Bucharest,
but there are no construction works underway at present on at least
two of these projects, according to the available information, so
inaugurations will probably be delayed.