Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
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Cushman & Wakefield says. "Over the last 15 years consumer spending has been growing constantly. As a result, there has been an enormous increase in retail space," said Magnus Lange, a Cushman & Wakefield managing partner overseeing the firm's operations in Sweden. Development activity is con- centrated mostly in the major cities, particularly Stockholm, where French-Dutch commercial property investor Unibail- Rodamco broke ground in January on what is expected to be the country's largest mall when it opens in 2015. Though Sweden has been spared the financial crises plaguing other parts of Europe, its retail sales are slowing on weaker consumer confidence. Those sales rose just 0.2 percent last year, a 15-year low, and some are forecasting a decline for this year. At the same time, some of Sweden's largest cities are experiencing population growth, which, along with a politi- cal climate that has grown friendlier for retail real estate, is emboldening developers. Many of the projects under way are renovations and expansions of existing centers because approvals for ground-up development have long been diffi- cult to secure. "City planners and politicians over the last decade discovered that shopping centers are major players in establishing new workplaces," said Charles Larsson, market- ing director for the Swedish division of Oslo, Norway–based Steen & Strøm, one of Scandinavia's largest shopping center companies. "So they have been more positive toward retail real estate as an engine of economic development." The Stockholm projects include Unibail-Rodamco's Mall of Scandinavia, just outside the city, and AMF Fastigheter's Mood Stockholm, cornerstone of an effort to breathe new life into a sleepy downtown office district. The population of Stockholm, Sweden's capital and its largest city, is now about 2 million in the metro area and growing by about 25,000 yearly, thanks to a strong job market and the city's role as a cultural and educational hub. "Stockholm is going at full speed regardless of what is hap- pening in the [Swedish] market overall," said Lange. "Many people are nervous that we are building too much in Stock- holm, but if you look at the population numbers, there is room for more." Mall of Scandinavia will increase the amount of shopping center space in Stockholm by some 8 to 10 percent, by Lange's estimate. The three-level, triangular-shaped mall will encompass 100,000 square meters of gross leasable area. The project, located in the suburb of Solna, is part of an AMF FASTIGHETER'S MOOD STOCKHOLM IS AN EFFORT TO REVITALIZE A SLEEPY DOWNTOWN OFFICE DISTRICT IN THE SWEDISH CAPITAL. 182 SCT / MAY 2012 urban district that several companies are developing near the Swedbank Arena soccer stadium, which is slated to open this year. The district, called Arenastaden (Arena City), will also contain about 2,000 apartments and some 260,000 square meters of office space. Nearly a third of the country's popula- tion lives within a 90-minute drive of the site of the future mall,