The newly reconfigured area of Sun Plaza translates into 5,500 sqm of new and redesigned fully leased shopping expanses that will further improve the so far existing and wide ranged offer of shopping, service and leisure spaces within the commercial centre.
The new shops, displayed on two levels of the shopping centre, include Lego, and Forever 21, with their largest stores in Romania, the lifestyle boutique Men’s Cave (with its first presence in a shopping centre) and several shops to premiere at Sun Plaza (LC Waikiki, Pepco, NYX, Pandora, MAC, Sabon, Melkior), coffee shops (Gloria Jeans), various service shops, including a kids hairdresser, Dolphy, or an RCS & RDS point.
”Sun Plaza is the dominant retail scheme for the southern-eastern part of Bucharest. By investing in this remodelling process we want to rise the shopping experience at our centre to the next level and make it attractive for the whole city,” said Friedrich Wachernig, member of S IMMO AG’s Management Board.
The reconfiguration process of Sun Plaza was divided into three phases, over a period of 24 months, in order to ensure the business continuity and to maintain the quality of the shopping experience.
The first phase translated into redesigned shopping space for both new and existing retail anchors such as Altex, Terranova, H&M, C&A and Bebe Tei, Autograf and O’Bag. It also included a remodelling and extension of the subway access.
The second phase with the opening of the new 25 shopping spaces will be accompanied by a unique art installation by Peter Kogler, an internationally acclaimed Austrian artist and one of the pioneers of the computer-generated art. He installed a 18 meters high lightning cascade weighing over one tonne and also marked the walls of the access alley from the subway to the shopping centre with its unique design.
The efforts undertaken by S IMMO AG towards improving the general offer of Sun Plaza have taken current retail trends into account. Shopping centres tend to become larger and visitors perceive them as an increasingly important part of their life.
”Trends show that people choose places in perfect accordance with the way they want their daily life to be. Sun Plaza has all the best ingredients for this. Being the only shopping mall with a direct connection from the subway, integrating one of the largest hypermarkets in town, with a balanced retail mix and offering a wide variety of service spaces and leisure options, Sun Plaza has great potential to become the prime option for visitors and buyers,” said Răzvan Iorgu, managing director of CBRE Romania, the company in charge with the centre management of Sun Plaza.
According to CBRE studies, Romanian consumers have an overwhelming preference for large shopping centres: 70 percent will visit most often such destinations, well above the 47 percent European average. Moreover, mall visitors are driven by shopping activities and have a pragmatic approach, looking not only for brands, but also for various solutions to their daily issues. At the same time, while 40 percent consider the entertainment options as the main trigger.
Sun Plaza registered its third year with 100 percent occupancy while 90 percent of the additional space to be opened in 2018 is already pre-let. The whole reconfiguration process will mean in the end 11,000 sqm of new high-quality retail and leisure space and 9,000 sqm redesigned from the existing retail spaces, resulting up to 40 shops and common spaces.
The reconfiguration of Sun Plaza is conceived by architects and engineers from ATP Vienna, one of the biggest integrated design companies in Austria, while the local contractor appointed for the construction works is Bog’Art, the biggest Romanian construction company. Furthermore the project coordination is ensured by Optim Project Management.
