KS Holding’s latest development, Ozols, has opened its doors to the public. The centre’s anchor, the leading DIY operator in the Baltics, K-Senukai, welcomed a crowd of people to the first of its new concept stores in the Baltic States. The flagship is not only the largest of its kind with more than 20,000 sqm but provides a wide array of specialised services and product categories for both private and professional customers. It caters to the customers of the newly merged K-Senukai and 1A.LV e-commerce operations by providing a dedicated e-commerce pick-up and support zone, enabling customers to conveniently collect online-ordered goods in Ozols. K-Senukai’s Latvian headquarters are based in 1,000 sqm of office space in the building.
The new center is replacing the former Galerija Azur, now providing a total leasable area of 27,100 sqm. Latvia’s leading food hyper operator RIMI had started operation at the site earlier this year and is now operating one of its first click and collect stores there. For our customers’ convenience there is a free-of-charge parking lot for 715 cars and special stands for 115 bicycles are available. Other new retailers now operating at Ozols are Drogas (a subsidiary of the Dutch A.S. Watson) and Dino Zoo, the pet store.
The building is special for its central feature, a great oak growing in the middle of the new complex. The direct translation of the site’s name means Oak tree. “Functionality and a quality offer for customers’ choices in creating and building their individual living space are the values of the centre powered by the presence of the ancient oak,” says the Director of the Shopping Centre, Ilze Brazeviča. “The retail destination is conveniently located near the southern bypass and complements the retail offer by focusing on convenience, interior, do-it-yourself segments.”
The owner of the asset, the Lithuanian UAB “KS Holding”, has invested €35 million into redeveloping the site along with the purchase of the property. The total area of the building is 29,500 square meters providing retail and office area. The shops are located on the ground level but the second floor is fully occupied by the office centre of K-Senukai.
KS Holding is jointly owned by the Finnish retailer Kesko, their Baltic partner Arturas Rakauskas and the private equity firm Zabolis Partners. It is building a €100 million property portfolio in the Baltic States. Other than Ozols, assets include the K-Senukai store in Daugavpils, and development sites secured in Tallinn and Vilnius. The investment company is always on the lookout for new prospective sites to extend their portfolio of new K-Senukai and K-Rauta stores in Riga, Tallinn and Vilnius.
The shareholders also own a 30 percent stake in the Lithuanian investment company ‘Baltic Retail Properties’ (BRP), of which the remaining 70 percent were acquired by W. P. Carey for 127 million Euro in 2017. BRP owns the store network of Kesko-Senukai in all three Baltic States. Management of the investment company under license by the Lithuanian Central Bank is provided by ‘Žabolis ir partneriai kapitalo valdymas’, part of Zabolis Partners Group.
