HB Reavis has completed a shopping center in Hradec Králové
photo: www.hkcity.cz
The Hradec project was prepared by the company since 2007, when it won the city competition to utilize municipal land in the Koruna area near the main train station. The construction of the center took two years.
The Aupark center features 120 stores with a total rental area of 20,900 square meters. "Currently, nearly 90 percent of them are rented," said Aupark director Marek Dörfl. The center includes parking garages for 1,100 cars, which are expected to improve the parking situation in the city center that is overwhelmed with vehicles. The shopping center is expected to create 500 to 600 jobs.
Among the main competitors of Aupark in Hradec Králové will be the Futurum center operated by Meyer Bergman, which has been open since 2000. To better face future competition, Futurum expanded its retail space by more than 50 percent in 2012 at a cost of 400 million crowns, increasing the number of stores from 68 to 110. In total, Futurum has 28,250 square meters of retail space, with an additional 14,400 square meters occupied by a Tesco hypermarket. According to HB Reavis director for the Czech Republic, Petr Herman, Aupark is a different type of retail space due to its location in the city center compared to previously constructed centers on the outskirts of cities. Aupark also does not feature a hypermarket.
The Gočárova Street adjacent to Aupark has recently begun to lose tenants, and several shops on the ground floor of apartment buildings are vacant. According to mayor Zdeněk Fink (Hradec Democratic Club), the city will respond by reducing rents in buildings owned by the city. "We will completely abolish the price map; spaces will be auctioned from zero; the goal is to fill the non-residential premises," he told ČTK.
The last major shopping center in the hundred thousand city of Hradec Králové was opened in November 2009 by the development company Amadeus Real. Its Atrium, with 45 stores and 7,370 square meters of retail space, cost half a billion crowns and was built next to the Tesco department store on the site of a former market in the city center. There are now approximately 1,000 stores in Hradec Králové. Chains such as Tesco, Ahold, Baumax, Obi, Makro, Hornbach, Asko, Sconto, Electro World, and Kaufland operate shopping centers in the city.
For the construction of Aupark, HB Reavis purchased 1.2 hectares of land from the Hradec city hall at the site of the former bus station near Koruna. They paid 4,800 crowns per square meter, and the total transaction amount including VAT was 69.44 million crowns. The city hall renovated the intersection near Koruna due to the center, which cost the city over 120 million crowns.
The international development group HB Reavis operates not only in the Czech Republic and Slovakia but also in Poland, Hungary, Britain, and Turkey. The group was founded in 1993 and is currently the third largest developer in the office building segment in Europe. It manages assets worth a total of 2.1 billion euros (approximately 57 billion CZK). The company has so far built 917,500 square meters of offices, retail and entertainment spaces, and logistics facilities. An additional more than one million square meters is in the planning, permitting, or construction phases.
Parameters of selected shopping centers in Hradec Králové:
| shopping center | retail area in square meters | number of stores | number of parking spaces |
| Aupark, Gočárova Street | 20,900 | 120 | 1100 |
| Futurum, Brněnská Street | 28,250 + 14,400 hypermarket | 110 | 1350 |
| Atrium, Dukelská Street | 7,370 | 45 | 216 |
Source: shopping centers
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