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NEWS NEW EPP TEAM WILL FOCUS ON CLIENTS
CapitaLand’s Suzhou mall opens with over 90% of space pre-let Capitaland’s Suzhou Center Mall, designed by Benoy
EPP’s Marek Gladki
POLISH retail asset manager and mall owner EPP has created a specialised leasing and asset-management department. The new team will handle all the portfolio and asset-management functions, including the commercialisation and re-commercialisation of space. The team will also launch a new asset-management system to modernise and improve the tenant mix at EPP’s malls, plus offer financial, technical and administrative support. “At EPP, co-operation with tenants does not end with signing a lease and collecting the rent,” said Marek Gladki, leasing and asset-management department director at EPP. “We want to be a trusted partner who is deeply involved with the clients’ issues; who is interested in their needs and meets their expectations.” Previously director of the shopping centres commercialisation and marketing department at Echo Investment, Gladki joined EPP in September and will lead the new team, which also includes Marta Kusiak, Anna Piotrowska, Jakub Ociepka and Marcin Ziolkowski. EPP (Echo Polska Properties) is a Dutch dual-listed real estate investment company that follows the REIT formula, investing in retail properties throughout Poland, with a portfolio that includes 14 retail projects, six offices, and two retail development sites in Warsaw.
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APITALAND has opened its biggestever project — Suzhou Center Mall in Suzhou, eastern China. With 152,000 sq m of GLA, the mall opened with more than 90% pre-let. Designed by Benoy, the sevenstorey Suzhou Center Mall is crowned with the world’s largest free-form monocoque roof at over 36,000 sq m, made up of 6,947 pieces of uniquely-shaped curved glass. The premium urban lifestyle mall is home to over 600 brands. Anchor tenants include Victoria’s
Secret and Forever 21, both from the US, and Danish furniture retailer Hay. H&M and Zara will operate three-level stores in the mall, their biggest outlets in Suzhou. The leisure component includes over 170 food and beverage options, ranging from Szechuan to Spanish cuisines. Key attractions include a Fanpekka children’s theme park, an indoor gaming centre and an Olympic-size ice rink operated by Champion Rink. Suzhou Center Mall is the centrepiece of the 1.13 million sq m Suzhou Center project, masterminded by Suzhou Hengtai Hold-
ing Group, which aims to create a new central business district for the city with four Grade A office towers, two luxury residential towers and the W Suzhou hotel tower in addition to the new mall. CapitaLand CEO Lim Ming Yan said: “The successful opening of Suzhou Center Mall caps a record year for CapitaLand. Close to one million sq m of retail across eight developments turned operational in 2017, marking our largest-ever offering in a single year. Suzhou Center represents a new frontier in our design, development and masterplanning capabilities.”
Changi Terminal 4 open for business SINGAPORE’s Changi Airport has completed its new Terminal 4 which will increase its capacity to 82 million passengers per year. The new terminal houses 62 new shops — pre-let to a host of international brands — and 19 F&B units. About a quarter of the occupiers are making their debut at Changi Airport. In a break from conventional airport design, one of the main attractions at T4 is the Heritage Zone, with its facades of old Singapore shop houses, as well as a row of F&B outlets exuding nostalgia with local cultural themes and old-school furnishings. Tan Lye Teck, Changi Airport Group’s executive vice-president
Stores at Singapore’s Changi Airport are inspired by traditional Peranakan houses
for airport management, said: “After five years in the making, we are very happy to commence operations at T4. The terminal is expected to handle about eight
18
million passenger movements in its first year of operation. More importantly, we are now able to deliver an even better travel experience to Changi’s passengers.”