Etele Plaza opened its doors to the public on September 17, 2021. Budapest’s latest shopping and entertainment centre located in the immediate vicinity of Etele square, Kelenföld offers a range of stores and services. Futureal’s €300 million development is also the first smart shopping centre in Hungary.
The building has been designed by Paulinyi & Partners and Dyer Group (interior design). The complex will feature numerous fashion stores, a supermarket, restaurants, cafés, a multiplex cinema, a gym, a children’s play centre and a wide range of other services.
The immediate catchment area of the new centre is one of the most densely populated areas of Budapest, where some 235,000 people live. Residents of this district represent 125 percent of the nation’s average purchasing power with a relatively low retail supply.
Customers may choose from a variety of well-known brands in Etele Plaza such as the fashion retailer Peek & Cloppenburg that opens its first store on the Buda side in the shopping centre. Spanish Inditex group will be present with all their brands available in Hungary, including Zara, introducing its latest store design concept to the local market. The American clothing company, GAP opens its first store in the country here, and the largest Müller can also be found in the shopping centre, with a special nature and a large perfume section available for the visitors. The greatest flagship store of eMAG will also welcome the customers in the new smart shopping centre, with an exceptionally huge inventory and a showroom full of exciting products.
The food court in Etele Plaza covers almost the entire third floor of the building, allowing over 1,000 people to dine at any one time. The interior dining area will seat 950, while another 150 seats will be installed on the roof terrace.
The next-generation shopping and entertainment centre not only helps visitors navigate and find the ideal parking space but also leads them to the selected shops while offering tailor-made deals for each customer. There will be 1,300 places in the car parks accessible from all directions, and almost 130 slots will include stations ready to charge electric cars, the price of which will be easily paid for via the app, added to the parking fee. At both entrances to the shopping centre, the longest continuous interactive LED wall in the capital has been installed, there are several benches with USB ports and a large digital playmat is also available. At the information desk, a Hungarian-speaking Pepper robot will guide customers on their way. The shopping centre will also introduce Ariadné to the public, a ground-breaking Hungarian invention to help the blind and visually impaired, developed by the engineers at Óbuda University. The grand opening is also the world premiere of the special mobility tool since this is the first time it has been utilized in a commercial environment after being successfully tested by the Hungarian Federation of the Blind and Partially Sighted.
Nearly 4,000 sqm of green space, ornamental grasses, shrubs, and trees will await visitors at Futureal’s new shopping and entertainment centre with a rentable area of 55,000 sqm. In line with the BREEAM certification, special attention is paid to ensuring easy accessibility, minimizing light pollution as well as direct environmental impact, incorporating durable materials and promoting waste reduction and reuse.
In line with Futureal’s Stay Safe initiative, the interior areas are almost completely touch-free. The HVAC systems of the building will include UV sterilizing filters. By using an environmentally friendly technology based on biological filtering, the systems provide almost 100 percent efficiency in killing viruses and bacteria in seconds, without the use of chemical disinfectants, providing fresh and clean air inside. The escalators are also fitted with a built-in handrail sanitiser system. The surface of all the furniture is made of a special antibacterial, virus eliminating material and the sinks can be used without touching them.
