Biggest shopping mall in Russia unveiled as retail sector picks up pace

With Russian consumer confidence increasing throughout 2010, the country’s retail sector continues to pick up pace. 
 
On June 1, 2010, real estate developer Aras Agalarov opened the biggest shopping mall in Russia to date, ‘Vegas’.  The two-level complex, which has a total area of 4.3 million square feet and more than 300 stores, includes a 5D movie theater, an indoor Ferris wheel, an indoor pond and a skating rink.  Agalarov, who spent $540 million on the Vegas project, has already pledged to build two more shopping centers in Moscow during the next three years.
 
It was also recently announced that the Cherkizovsky Market in Moscow, an open-air market that was shuttered in 2009, is to be revived.  Plans are being made for the market to be replaced with a $600 million, multipurpose wholesale center, which could possibly be the biggest in Russia.
 
In addition to openings in Moscow, other major shopping centers have opened this year in the country’s regions.  They include the retail-entertainment center Marmalade in Vologda, which opened in May and is the largest in its region, and the Triumph Retail Mall in Saratov, which is scheduled to open on June 24, 2010.  Triumph’s developer, MirLand, is confident on the return of retail demand and has already leased out approximately 93 percent of the mall’s area.