IKEA complex already nearly full

The new Ikea shopping centre near Loulé, which the promoters wish us to refer to as MAR Shopping Algarve, has announced a pre-launch occupation rate of 70%.

Names include Zara, Bershka, Stradivarius, Zara Home, Pull & Bear, Oysho, Massimo Dutti, Primark, Mango, C & A, Punt Roma, Sfera, Tiffosi, Aromas and Sephora are some of signings.

Pingo Doce already has taken the supermarket space in the commercial complex that hosts the Designer Outlet Algarve and the long-awaited IKEA store. There will even be a Worten to add to our pleasure.

Ana Machado, director of marketing for IKEA Centres in Europe is back in the media with one of her regular press releases and hopes the whole project will be 100% full by the year end ready for next summer’s grand opening.

To keep us all happy, a new website has been launched with images of happy shoppers relaxing in modern surroundings to start giving customers the feeling that the new centre is “a meeting point for leisure time with family or friends."

"This huge recreation area will have fountains, paths and playgrounds, because our goal is that people will build memories of a perfect day with the family," explains Machado.

The Ikea fact file states “with 220 stores and 3,500 parking spaces, the new shopping complex plays a major role in the development of the region. In total, the Ikea Group is investing €200 million in a project that will create 3,000 direct and indirect jobs.”

Here is the new website

http://www.marshoppingalgarve.iicg.pt/

Comments  

0 #6 Jose Reis 2016-09-03 21:10

It would be important to have a Media Markt something missing in the Algarve ...

+2 #5 Charly 2016-05-05 15:13

Creating and opening a "shopping mall" is an excercice of high mathematics and higher financial engeneering. Before the first line is drawed on the paper the list of "vital investors" is made (and guaranteed) otherwise the line will never be drawed ! That's the reason why the world around and in each country you meet the same names and brands in the malls. That includes of course that you will meet selden newcomers and definitely NO competitors because nobody is willing to shoot in his own foot of course.
And what about the latest shopping mall built in Carvoeiro ? I think they "forgot" to establish "the vital investor's list" I am afraid....

+2 #4 johnny5alive 2016-05-04 17:26

All the same apart from ikea. YAWN

+4 #3 OnePlus 2016-05-04 09:09

Would have been nice to see a Media Markt open up in the Algarve as opposed to the half empty spaces of RP!!!
Come on Media Markt get in there!

+3 #2 algarveandroid 2016-05-03 20:31

Had hoped to see a overseas shopping , aka iceland , but I doubt they have the brains to expand to the eastern end of the tourist hotspots.

Portugals shopping has the same families running it since the 80s , the same ones behind the attempt to prevent Ikea from opening a mall that would enable competition against them, stoking up the little man shopkeepers xenophobia - that every problem in Portugal is a result of a foreigner.

+11 #1 Lindy 2016-05-03 20:02

So the same shops as all the other shopping centres then, just like the USA and the UK. How dull.

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