Croatia gains its second large outlet centre!
Croatia got its second outlet centre yesterday, along with the existing Roses Designer Outlet in Sv. Križ Začretje, in a very attractive location next to IKEA in Zagreb, under the name of Designer Outlet Croatia, which is otherwise the largest in the country.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 21st of June, 2018, the design company will be run by the Austrian consulting company ROS Retail Outlet Shopping, and their director Thomas Reichenauer explained that this was only the first phase of a joint venture between IKEA Centers and the Swiss Mutschler Outlet Holding, worth a massive 60 million euro.
Designer Outlet Croatia has seen a huge investment of 33 million euro in total. The outlet stretches over 15,000 square feet and looks like a small town, boasting architecture inspired by various Croatian regions. The second phase, more specifically the extension of the outlet, will take place in the next few years. The new outlet shopping centre will employ around 400 people in its 75 stores, of which 50 are currently open, with around 100 brands on offer. There are also 2500 new parking spaces for shoppers.
This centre has great advantages over Roses because it is located on the outskirts of Zagreb, along a road that as many as 50,000 cars pass per day, its convenient position right next to IKEA doesn't hurt either, as IKEA's hordes of shoppers will probably enter the new outlet while in the area.
Vladislav Lalić, director of IKEA property for Southeastern Europe, said that their Zagreb location had about 1.8 million visitors last year alone, and that this marked very good potential for the brand new shopping outlet. Branko Mihajlov, CEO of Designer Outlet Croatia, said that the opening of this centre was initially planned for June the 7th, but because of minor technical problems in planning they had to move the grand opening by two weeks in order to avoid potential problems upon opening.
