Gliwice 14th September 2012 – The Europa Centralna retail development today passed a key milestone with a topping-out ceremony to mark the completion of roofing and structural work to the shopping mall and retail park buildings. The President of Gliwice, Zygmunt Frankiewicz, was guest of honour at the traditional topping-out ceremony, which was celebrated on site by contractors, tenants and employees.
“The topping-out ceremony for Europa Centralna is a happy and symbolic moment for us,” said Jonathan Tinker, Executive Director of Helical Poland, Europa Centralna’s developer. “It marks the effective completion of the construction phase and, given that we started on the complicated ground works last autumn, which seems like it was only yesterday, it has been a considerable achievement to reach this stage in such a short time.”
Europa Centralna’s site works are almost complete. The shape and finish of the mall and retail park buildings is emerging and car parking zones and pedestrian walkways are appearing as earthworks and building materials disappear. Attention now turns to the interior fit-out of the buildings and to the car parking areas.
Because of the huge size of the site and the limited load capacity of the land, foundation piles had to be used, hundreds of them covering the site like a concrete forest. Onto this went the foundations and then up went the main building structure, made of pre-fabricated, reinforced concrete. The walls are brick with external panelling. A specially-designed mezzanine of reinforced-concrete will become a restaurant area. All installations and utility connections are complete.
The premises of the largest anchor tenants, such as Castorama, Tesco, Saturn and RTV Euro AGD have already been handed over for further works and fit-out. The remaining tenants will take over their premises in the coming weeks. This will be a very busy time for all as multiple tenants work simultaneously on their fit-outs. The final layer of paving for the car park should be down by the end of September.
Europa Centralna boasts state-of-the-art environmental technology, essential for such a large building. The latest ventilation systems equipped with cooling towers will work alongside other systems to ensure low electricity consumption. Each shop has access to two types of water, potable and recycled, saving energy on water purification. Europa Centralna has been awardeda BREEAM ecological certificate. This is a British system that evaluates the impact of buildings on the environment (BRE Environmental Assessment Method) and sets the standards for sustainable building design. The Design Stage of the Europa Centralna project was evaluated as “good” and, once the centre is complete, it will receive a BREEAM in Use certificate.
Progress on site can be followed at www.europacentralna.eu
Europa Centralna is Helical Poland’s largest project so far. With its excellent location – at the Sośnica junction, connecting the A1 and A4 motorways and national road no. 44 – and its huge potential market – 4.9 million customers within 60 minutes’ drive – Europa Centralna will become a dominant trading location in the region. The innovative design and combination of high quality Shopping Mall and Retail Park brings a completely new trading concept to the Polish market. The general contractor is Polimex Mostostal and the total investment exceeds 150 million euro. Key tenants of this 67.000m2 retail space include brands such as: Castorama, Tesco Extra, Saturn, Jula, Jysk, RTVEuroAGD, Ski Team, Smyk, Reserved, Cropp, House, Mohito, New Yorker, H&M, KappAhl, Cubus, Lindex, Empik, CCC, Solar, Promod, Home&You, Kakadu, Douglas, Super-Pharm, City Sport and McDonald’s.
Helical Poland is a subsidiary company of Helical Bar plc and was established in 2005. Helical Bar plc is a UK based property development and investment company listed on the London Stock Exchange with a market capitalisation of over £350m. To take advantage of the growth potential of the Central European markets, Helical Bar opened its first overseas office in Warsaw, Poland in January 2005.
Helical Poland specialises in retail development projects, including existing sites, sites designated for large-scale developments and joint-venture projects. The company focuses on the development of retail parks of between 10,000m2 and 20,000m2, located close to towns with populations above 50,000 inhabitants. Good road access and visibility are important. In 2008 it opened an office in Krakow. Specialising in retail parks and shopping centre development, Helical Poland completed its first project in Wroclaw, the Park Handlowy Młyn, in December 2008; a second project, Turawa Park in Opole, a 40,000m2 shopping mall, financed by Standard Life Investments, opened in April 2001.