Sonae Sierra and ING Real Estate Develoment have just established a partnership (50%/50%) for the development of a new shopping and leisure center in Spezia, Italy. It's scheduled to open to the public in the Summer of 2008.
With a gross lettable area of 38.300 m2, and a total investment of 130 million, the new center will have a hypermarket managed by Coop Liguria as its main anchor shop.
As for all Sonae Sierra developments, this new center will feature the most sophisticated solutions in terms of architecture, marketing and environment, so as to become a reference in both the Italian and the European markets.
On this development, Pietro Malaspina, Sonae Sierra's Managing Director in Italy, stated: "The new shopping center will be perfectly integrated in the surrounding urban environment, and its construction reinforces Spezia's traditional role as a reference marketplace in its vast catchment area, giving the city a new high quality shopping, services and leisure activities attraction pole, both in terms of the tenant mix and of the development itself".
This Spezia development is particularly important in terms of encouraging the recovery of a former Petrol Industry site, and is a natural extension to the city center.
Sonae Sierra and ING Real Estate currently co-own eight shopping centers, including Centro Colombo, in Lisbon, and the Zubiarte, in Bilbao, by the Guggenheim Museum.
Source: Sonae Sierra
