Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
Issue link: https://sct.epubxp.com/i/62026
ISTINYEPARK, ISTANBUL MODERN BAZAARS TURKEY BOASTS SOME OF THE WORLD'S MOST INNOVATIVE RETAIL CENTERS By Steve McLinden RADITIONAL SHOPPING MALLS ARE RELATIVELY NEW in Turkey, having arrived in the late 1980s. But Turkey has been a center of commerce for centuries, dating back to the opening of the Istanbul Grand Bazaar in 1461, arguably the world's first enclosed shop- ping center, and even further back to Turkey's nearly 500-year reign as the capital and trading hub of the Ottoman Empire. Modern-day Turkey has overcome a reputation as a risky emerging mar- ket to rank second worldwide in GDP growth last year, after China, according to Jones Lang LaSalle, and to spawn dozens of imaginative retail projects. "Turkey has become quite the bellwether for new shopping center development, and there's much more to come," said Ian Thomas, head of Vancouver, British Columbia–based 206 SCT / MAY 2012