Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
Issue link: https://sct.epubxp.com/i/74664
WORLD AT A GLANCE Westfield Stratford City will emerge a winner from this year's Olympics, in the U.K.. Some three-quarters of those attending the event will pass through the London mall, which sits between a transit hub and the Olympic park's main entrance. But observers say the impact of the games on retail elsewhere in Britain will be dulled by the reces- sion, a lack of holidays and some tricky weather. Some 37,000 jobs would be created in Spain if that coun- try's 531 shopping centers were allowed to extend oper- ating times and to take fewer mandatory holidays, similar to the schedules approved for Madrid's malls, says the Span- ish Association of Shopping Centers. Spain's shopping center industry currently em- ploys nearly 311,000. The Al- Futtaim Group–led consortium behind the planned Doha Festival City, in Qatar, has secured a $1 billion loan to fund the mixed-use project's construction. Doha Festival City will be anchored by a 260,000-square-meter (nearly 2.8 million square feet) retail center. CapitaMalls Asia es- tablished a $1 billion equity fund called CapitaMalls China Development Fund III to invest in retail develop- ment in China. The fund will be seeded with three CapitaMalls retail projects already under development. The company will hold a 50 percent stake, and institu- tional investors will own the other half. Parque Arauco will invest $1 billion over the next five years in several malls in Colombia. The Chile-based developer, which operates Parque Arboleda mall in Pereira, is eyeing the cities of Barranquilla, Bogotá, Cali and Medellín. Its mall in Bucara- manga is scheduled to open next April. The developer teamed up with Banca de In- versión Bancolombia Corpo- ración Financiera and Fondo Inmobiliario Colombia in May for a joint development venture in which Parque Ar- auco holds a 55 percent stake. 12 SCT / AUGUST 2012 Mall Plaza, the biggest retail developer in Chile, says it will invest $566 million to build four new malls in that country by 2014. The company already has 11 centers in Chile and is also building centers in Peru and Colombia. Two of the new projects will be in Santiago, one in Concepción and one in Copiapó. A $272 million expansion of Dragon Mart will double the Dubai mall's size to 335,000 square meters (3.7 million square feet) — the equivalent of 47 soccer fields — once it is completed in 2013. The expansion is already 80 per- cent leased. Some 52,000 shoppers visit daily, ac- cording to Nakheel, its developer. Lend Lease will make its first investment in China and Japan with unnamed partners. The Australia-based firm has already provided construction and management advice on some 250 projects in China and has identified target cities there. It also wants to expand in Malaysia and Sin- gapore.