In the Czech Republic, no new shopping centers will be built next year

Prague - The boom in the construction of shopping centers in the Czech Republic has come to an end. According to the consulting firm Cushman & Wakefield, there are no plans to open any large shopping centers next year, except for smaller shopping parks or retail areas in city centers.
    "Next year, developers in the Czech Republic will limit themselves to the expansion of existing projects; for the first time since 1990, there will be no opening of a new shopping center. The period of rapid growth has ended; the market will grow naturally. There will no longer be large-scale construction across the entire country. We expect that developers will build architecturally quality buildings in well-visible locations in city centers," stated the head of market research at C&W, Alexander Rafajlovič.
    The expansion of shopping centers in the domestic market and in Europe nearly came to a halt last year due to the economic crisis. It is expected that next year will be even more modest in terms of new construction. "The slowdown in construction is a pan-European trend; next year about 5.2 million square meters of new space in shopping centers should be built in Europe, which is the least in the past thirty years. In the Czech Republic, we expect the lowest volume of new construction since 1998. This is a new situation after years of rapid growth when we were catching up with Western Europe,” said Jan Kotrbáček, head of the retail team at C&W.
    According to calculations by C&W, there were an average of 231 square meters of shopping space per thousand inhabitants in Europe in the first half of this year. The Czech average was 191 square meters per thousand inhabitants and is expected to reach 198 square meters by the end of the year.
    By far the most shopping centers are being built this year in Russia, and according to C&W, this will also be the case next year. "In two countries - Russia and Turkey - more new space will be built in 2010 and 2011 together than in the rest of Europe," the company stated.
    Shopping centers have been a phenomenon in domestic trade since the late 1990s. However, they are currently experiencing difficult times, as about a third of their visitors have reduced their spending due to the economic crisis. According to data from the company DTZ, some shopping complexes experienced a turnover drop of up to 30 percent last year. Their average attendance has also decreased.