New property in Russia is coming into the market: Swedish company Ikea plans to open additional Mega Malls in Samara, Rostov-on-Don and Novosibirsk in 2007. Mega projects will continue the program of development of the largest shopping centers in Russia and will add 450,000 sq meters of total leasable area to the market.

Currently Cushman & Wakefield Stiles & Riabokobylko is the exclusive leasing agent for five new Mega Malls which are due to open in the last three months of the year: one in Moscow (Belaya Dacha), two in St Petersburg, and one each in Nizhny Novgorod and Yekaterinburg. The total amount of new retail space is more than 700,000  sq m.

Konstantin Sakharov, Executive Director Retail Agency, Cushman & Wakefield Stiles & Riabokobylko, says: “The initial plan for Ikea’s entry into the Russian market envisioned a large retail park with several big box stores and a relatively small gallery. However the market suggested that Moscow and its population of 12 million would support a different model – a super-regional shopping centre. And it worked.”

With the help of C&W/S&R, Ikea opened its first super-regional MEGA Mall centre,  Mega 1,  in Moscow, with 160,000 sq m of gross lettable area. Around 85 per cent of the scheme was let in less than five months, and it was fully let 5 months before the scheme opened in December 2002.

The second scheme, Mega 2, opened in the Moscow suburb of Khimki with 270,000 sq m. The scheme took less than three months to be fully let – and that was  5 months before it opened in December 2004 as Eastern and Central Europe’s largest shopping centre.

Ikea opened its first regional scheme outside Moscow in Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan, in December 2005. Once again, the scheme met with success. The 110,000 sq m Mega Kazan opened fully let.

Apart from Ikea’s own stores, anchor tenants in the five new Mega Malls which are planned to open in 2006 include international retailers such as Auchan (French hypermarket chain), OBI (German DIY chain) and Russian retailers M.Video (home electronics and appliances) and Arbat Prestige (cosmetics).

Mega Malls in Samara, Rostov-on-Don and Novosibirsk as well as existing projects will include retail gallery, DIY, Hypermarket, White and Brown and other anchor tenants.

“Such a massive regional expansion of an international developer is unprecedented in Russia. At the same time, Ikea is  playing an important role in the development of Russia’s retail market, providing modern retail formats of high quality,” added Mr. Sakharov.