News

17/02/2021

BBJ.hu: Etele Plaza to open in September

The realization of Futureal Group’s EUR 300 million Etele Plaza has entered its final phase. Buda’s largest shopping mall is set to open its doors in September, according to a press release sent to the Budapest Business Journal.

The developer noted that while it continued its retail project despite the global economic and health crisis, it also postponed the original opening date by six months to September in order to minimize the impact of the pandemic and maximize the benefits of Etele Plaza’s tenants and therefore their customers.

According to a recent announcement, the plaza is going to host Peek & Cloppenburg’s first store on the Buda side of the capital.

“Although Futureal could have kept the original completion deadline we decided to make additional significant financial investments and set a new opening date that has enabled our partners to take a breath and realign their business strategies to the new environment. This step has been proven to be a successful move, since over three-quarter of Etele Plaza’s rentable area has been leased by now. The current mix of our tenants already offers an attractive and colourful diversity of products and services and now we proudly present Peek & Cloppenburg” – underlined Tibor Tatár, CEO of Futureal.

In its new store in Etele Plaza, Peek & Cloppenburg will offer a selected range of brands on a sales area of around 4,000 sqm including its popular own as well as international brands. The new store presents itself with a new floor space concept, which is clearly divided into men’s and women’s floors. The new arrangement is intended to provide optimal orientation for our customers and to invite them to be inspired by the variety of products on offer. The store will also feature a new, special athletic leisure area, focusing on sports fashion.

“We are very pleased that we have developed successfully since our start in Hungary in 2007 and are now opening our second store in Budapest in Etele Plaza. Especially in these difficult times, we are looking ahead and continue to believe in the stationary trade,” says Paul Pörtner, director retail management at Peek & Cloppenburg, responsible for the Austrian and Eastern European market. The expansion of the company started at the end of the 1990s. Today, Peek & Cloppenburg is represented in 15 countries, including Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Poland, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Serbia. The company will continue to pursue the expansion of its store network, the development of new markets and the expansion in Eastern Europe.

Prior to Peek & Cloppenburg’s announcement, Etele Plaza released the news last year that Spanish Inditex Group decided to be present in the shopping center with all of its brands available in Hungary, including Zara fashion store featuring a brand new design concept. With a rentable area of 55,000 sqm, realized in the meeting point of the Kelenföld railway station, metro line 4 and the approach section of M1-M7 motorways, Etele Plaza can be accessed in 10 minutes from downtown.

The immediate catchment area of the new center is one of the most densely populated areas of Budapest, where some 235,000 people live. Residents of this district represent 125% of the nation’s average purchasing power with a relatively low retail supply. Etele Plaza will feature 180 shops, a supermarket, restaurants, cafés, a multiplex cinema, a gym, a children’s play center and a range of other services with nearly 1,300 parking lots. The advanced location and navigation system will facilitate parking in the building by indicating empty spaces, it will also help customers to find the chosen stores or services through a mobile application. The inner space will also feture an interactive LED display media interface. The complex is being developed under Futureal’s Stay Safe initiative designed to respond to the changing market demand due to the pandemic.

 

Read more on BBJ.hu.