Saturday, March 3rd, Foruminvest Italia inaugurated its Gran Shopping Mongolfiera shopping center in Molfetta, Italy. The spectacular opening, with 45,000 visitors, marked the end of an intensive, 14-month construction period. The Gran Shopping Mongolfiera is a third generation shopping center, with 42,000 m² of built area distributed over one level, 2,700 parking places, a 9,500-m² Ipercoop hypermarket and a mall with over 110 shops, 100% let.
The shopping center, the largest in Puglia, has the crystalline waters of the Adriatic Sea as the overriding motif. In Piazza Nave, the structure of the ceiling mirrors the hull of a wooden boat. The Piazza Onda is a great windowed square recalling the waves of the sea. And the main square, Piazza Ottagono, is striking due to a giant artistic impression of a compass on the ceiling.
Thanks to its size, outstanding location (no competition in 20-min. drive) and its unique architecture, the shopping center is an important draw for the Puglia region.
Gran Shopping Mongolfiera, located on the SS16 from Bari to Foggia, is striking due to the unusual design of its covered Piazza's and richly detailed malls. Special elements include the use of warm materials and colours, fountains and two gigantic LED screens from Forum TV on which weekend sports, fashion shows, the best of YouTube, daily local news and interactive games are played and shown. In the new shopping circuit you will find a variety of shops (>110) where leading brands and speciality shops in fashion, perfumery, multimedia, gifts/bijouterie, glasses, shoes, jewellery, sports, telephony and a 9,500-m² hypermarket (Ipercoop) can be found. Retail outlets include Hennes & Mauritz, Media World, Zara, four other brands of Inditex (Stradivarius, Pull & Bear, Bershka and Oysho), Oviesse, Scarpe & Scarpe, Geox, Bata, Footlocker, Swarovski, Celio, Cisalfa, Co-Import and Max & Co. In addition to all these shops one of the best international Italian food chains Fratelli la Bufala has leased a shop for its restaurant with an outdoor terrace. Gran Shopping Mongolfiera is one of the four shopping centers in Italy having Zara, H&M, Media World and Oviesse as tenant in one shopping center.
Gran Shopping Mongolfiera is already awarded with Il Ballo del Mattone (The Golden Brick) as the second best shopping center of 2008 in Italy, just behind the Roman retail Park Fiumicino. Third place was given to the shopping center Bariblu in Bari.
The architecture of the Gran Shopping Mongolfiera is carried out by the Italian architecture company IRCI S.r.l. and by conceptual designer, Cconcept.
The Gran Shopping Mongolfiera inauguration follows that of Foruminvest Italia's 36,000-m² Gran Sasso shopping center in November 2007. Foruminvest Italia is planning to open its third shopping center near Naples known as Gran Shopping Le Fragole and comprising over 35,000 m² of retail space and restaurants, in the fourth quarter of 2009.
Source: The PR Factory
