ECE and WestImmo agree financing of large-scale project
More than 1,000 jobs +++ Opening in fall 2011
Szeged / Hamburg / Mainz, August 24, 2010 – The construction works for the shopping center “Árkád” in the South Hungarian city Szeged are making fast progress: on Tuesday, August 24, 2010, ECE laid the foundation stone for the new inner-city shopping gallery in the presence of numerous city officials. Moreover, ECE and Westdeutsche Immobilienbank AG signed a loan agreement for the construction of the shopping center. The loan amounts to up to 74 million euros. The overall investment volume of the project adds up to more than 100 million euros. The Árkád Szeged is thus one of the currently largest externally financed construction projects in Hungary. “Our cooperation with WestImmo is a positive signal and shows that well-designed retail projects such as the Árkád Szeged can also be realized in the current financial market crisis,” says ECE CEO Alexander Otto.
“We are looking forward to the cooperation with our customer ECE, who we are happy to support with construction and investment financing despite a difficult market environment in Hungary,” says Claus-Jürgen Cohausz, chairman of WestImmo. “WestImmo carries on pursuing its long-term strategy to finance high-quality properties in selected markets with good sponsors,” continues Cohausz.
Mayor of Szeged, Dr. Lászlo Botka: “We are happy about this investment, which will make Szeged nicer, more vivid and attractive. The shopping center Árkád does not only contribute to the embellishment of the city center with its impressive building but will also create a considerable number of jobs and in this way ensure the livelihood of many families.”
“The cooperation with the town of Szeged is very good,” says Christoph Augustin, Managing Director of ECE Budapest. “All project development steps have been closely and constructively coordinated right from the beginning.”
With the Árkád Szeged, an elegant shopping center providing around 130 specialist stores, cafés, restaurants and service providers on three floors with approx. 41,000sqm retail space is being constructed in the center of Hungary’s fourth largest city by fall 2011. ECE commissioned the renowned Hungarian construction company Market as general contractor with the construction of the building. During the construction phase, presumably up to 800 people will be working on the large construction site. After the opening even around 1,000 people will find a job in the Árkád Szeged. The center concept comprises also ca. 1,350 parking spaces. More than 400,000 people are living in the total catchment area.
Already now, more than 50 percent of the shop areas in the Árkád are leased out. “This high leasing rate a good year before the opening is a clear confirmation of the good concept and the first-class location of the Árkád Szeged,” says Christoph Augustin. The providers also include numerous local operators. The focus of the range on offer in the shopping center is placed on fashion brands, which are not yet represented in Szeged, as well as international and young fashion. Moreover, among others a supermarket as well as numerous cafés and restaurants are to move into the center.
The Árkád Szeged is being created on the premises of a former hemp spinning company. Some of the historic façades are to be reconstructed and integrated in the center. The builders will use the preserved original materials of the company’s façade when realizing the reconstruction. The center design is based on the draft by the architectural office Szanto es Miko Epiteszek from Budapest, which won the architectural competition in 2007. The final plans were prepared by the architectural office “3H”, which was also awarded in the competition, in close cooperation with the winner of the competition.
WestImmo – Real estate competence for structured financing
Westdeutsche ImmobilienBank AG is one of the leading European providers for real estate financing and is strongly represented in continental and Eastern Europe with representative offices in Madrid, Paris, Warsaw and Prague as well as a representative office in New York (USA), a branch office in London and a subsidiary in Tokyo (Japan). WestImmo provides its financings to leading national and international investors for their domestic and international projects. The financed properties include office, retail and logistics real estate as well as hotels. WestImmo has 480 employees, a balance-sheet total of approx. EUR 27 billion and granted its customers new loans in the amount of EUR 6 billion in 2009.
ECE – Europe’s market leader in the shopping center section
The long-term management of Árkád Szeged will be in the hands of ECE. ECE develops, plans, builds, leases and manages large commercial real estate in the sectors shopping, office, industries since 1965 and is active in 14 European countries. The company is European market leader with 116 managed shopping centers. On an overall sales area of 3.6 million square meters, about 12,500 retail businesses generate 13.6 billion euros in annual sales. Among these centers are Potsdamer Platz Arkaden in Berlin, Metro-City in Istanbul, Arkády Pankrác in Prague, the Serdika Center in Sofia and Vremena Goda in Moscow. In Hungary, ECE operates the “Árkád Örs vezer tere” in Budapest, the Árkád in Pecs, the Árkád in Györ and the Fórum in Debrecen. Another 21 shopping centers are currently under construction or planned throughout Europe, among them the Thier-Galerie in Dortmund, Skyline Plaza in Frankfurt am Main, TerraCity in Antalya and Galeria Kaskada in Szczecin. Since July 2010 ECE has also been active in Spain, where another 14 centers are taken under management as well, among others in Madrid, Alicante and San Sebastian.