Galeria Kaskada draws a decided step closer to realization

The Szczecin city authorities have agreed to sell German ECE Projektmanagement a plot of land upon which the zl. 400 million Galeria Kaskada shopping mall will be built. ECE will create a partnership called Centrum Polska 1 with the city council, which will manage the project. The council will receive shares in the new venture in exchange for transferring the rights of the land worth zl. 13 million. During the construction phase, ECE will gradually buy the land from the partnership for zl. 20 million. This deal means that the troubled clothing manufacturer ZPO Odra will be forced to move its factory, as it occupies land earmarked for the project. There are rumors that the enterprise might receive zl. 8 million for its plot from ECE. Odra president Wieslawa Hoffmann said that she knew about the need for her factory to relocate, but failed to comment on the level of compensation, only saying that the move would be expensive. Piotr Pawlowski, a manager in ECE, hopes to open the mall in mid 2005, which will employ about 1,000 staff. (Puls Biznesu, p. 11) M.M.