A major new shopping mall, Serdika Centre, is scheduled to open in Sintiakovo Blvd in Sofia next year. The Bulgarian arm of the German investor, ECE Project Management Bulgaria, will present the mall as an attraction in itself, rather than as a marketing tool for the brand names within it.

Atanas Radev, the general manager of the Serdika Centre, was educated within the company in Hamburg, Leipzig and Hanover. His main priority is to devise a coherent strategy for Serdika Centre, for the entire duration of the contract with the investor – which will be a long-term scheme, spanning 10 to 15 years, Stroitelstvo Gradut reports.

The mall will have a golden exterior, something unprecedented for Bulgaria. Significantly, it will not be marketed as a recreation centre, hence the lack of cinemas. There will be restaurants, but the main attraction of the mall will be thematic presentations to be conducted at specified intervals.

The stores within the mall will have a common strategy, image and policy, offering high class goods and services. Up until this point 80 per cent of the stores and parcels within the mall have already been rented out, or 175 stores out of 220.

Among the tenants will be Piccadilly, Technopolis, Beauty Zone and long-time partner Reek and Cloppenberg.

"The rental price range in Serdika will be sorted in accordance with the current market in Bulgaria. They have considered other factors such as location, service and function. We don't give out space just to the highest bidder," said Plamen Ilchev, executive director of ECE Project Management Bulgaria.

The total investment for Serdika Centre is 220 million euro. "Serdika Centre will be one of the largest shopping malls in Sofia, encompassing 50 000 sq m of trade area and 35 000 sq m of office space. It will have more than 1600 parking spaces beneath and above the centre," Ilchev said