Poland’s shopping center stock seventh in Europe – C&W

With some 9.2 million sqm of retail space located in shopping centers, Poland ranked seventh in Europe in a recent report by Cushman & Wakefield. Russia came in first with 17.7 million sqm of shopping center space, followed by France (17.66 million sqm) and the UK (17.1 million sqm). Germany, Italy and Spain also came in ahead of Poland. In terms of the amount of retail space in the pipeline scheduled to be completed in 2015-2016, Poland ranked fifth in Europe with 642,000 sqm, after Russia (5.1 million sqm), Turkey (2 million sqm), France (1.1 million sqm) and Italy (649,000 sqm). The majority of new shopping centers in 2014 in Poland were delivered mainly in smaller cities with population below 100,000, such as Siedlce (Galeria Siedlce, 33,500 sqm), Ostrołęka (Galeria Bursztynowa, 27,000 sqm), Starachowice (Centrum Galardia, 18,750 sqm) and Ełk (Brama Mazur, 16,250 sqm). The total retail stock in Europe stood at 152.3 million sqm in January 2015, 3.3 percent higher than a year earlier. Western Europe accounts for 69 percent of the total retail space, however it is the CEE region that is developing its retail stock the most rapidly. In H2 2014, 2.2 million sqm of shopping center space was delivered in CEE countries, while only 981,000 sqm was added to Western European markets.