It is currently almost impossible to get a new passage of a fashion brand among the tenants, for which the covid restrictions have paid particularly hard. While in the autumn of 2019 the then completed Stromovka shopping gallery in Holešovice was not in need of a tenant from among fashion retailers, now the situation on the market is completely different. After opening on Friday, the anchor tenants in Bořislavka will be the Lidl supermarket, the drugstore dm and the Dobrovský Book. In addition, there will be smaller shops, services and The Miners Café.
“The opening of some stores is already related to the demand of local residents and also to the fact that the first three office buildings are occupied in June, so it is expected that the stores will be used by employees who move there,” says Otto Koval, KKCG’s Sales Director Real Estate Group.
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According to Koval, leases have already been signed for 85 percent of retail space. The second part of the shopping arcade will open in September. The tenants of the second phase include, for example, the elektro Datart chain, SCANquilt textile goods, Orion household utensils or the Oresi kitchen. Fashion is represented by the cheaper Polish chain Pepco, which is a frequent tenant in retail parks of smaller cities.
“Bořislavka Centrum is a local shopping center where the customer is looking for services rather than fashion, so clothing chains were not our priority. The fact that during the pandemic, clothing chains stopped expanding their sales network also played a role, ”adds Koval.
Consequences of the annual lockdown
It is retail parks, which are characterized by access to shops not from the passage, but directly from the parking lot, that have proven to be the most viable in a pandemic. This is despite the fact that it used to be the most popular place to buy non-food goods in shopping centers.
“The effects of restrictions on gastronomy and fashion retail are enormous. The sellers have found themselves in a situation where they are calculating whether all existing trades are economically sustainable for them. Some shopping centers will have problems with the occupancy of vacant space, “says the Trend Report analysis. For example, the fashion brands Camaieu, Promod and Pietro Filipi have already disappeared from the Czech market. The network of branches was cut by Next, Geox, Zara and other brands from the Spanish group Inditex, but also by the coffee chain Costa Coffee.
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Nevertheless, the shopping centers believe that they will be able to cope with the consequences of the almost one-year lockdown. “The focus of the retail segment still lies in brick-and-mortar stores and shopping centers, which have long confirmed the role of a distribution and socialization point,” says Jana Kubíček, head of the Association of Shopping Centers in the Czech Republic. The total coverage of shopping centers per capita in the Czech Republic is slightly below the European Union average. In terms of purchasing power, however, it already belongs to the group of countries with above-average capacity of retail space.
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