Sun Plaza finally opens today

One of the biggest shopping centres in Romania, Sun Plaza, is scheduled for opening today in Bucharest's Piata Sudului, in a period when all market surveys are pointing to a sharp consumption decline and implicitly of retail. Michael Richard, manager of EMCT, the developer of the mall, no longer rushes to make estimates about retailers' sales, on which rent revenues equally depend. In autumn, they were put at around 300m euros. For this, people must first be convinced to come to the mall for the investment to be justified, 200m euros from the owners, Austria's Sparkassen Immobilien, to which a further 80m euros invested by tenants are added. Despite the numerous delays, since 2008 onwards, developers did not manage to work in sync with the over 100 tenants that will open stores in the project, so that fit-out of some stores seemed to have just begun yesterday. Somewhat surprisingly, a series of German or Austrian retailers, such as New Yorker or Humanic, will miss the shopping centre opening, as will the operators of Debenhams, Hervis, Diverta, Starbucks, McDonald's, and the operator of the 15 cinema screens, Cinema City.