Mezhdunarodny Mall Opens

By Olga Kalashnikova

The St. Petersburg Times

Published: August 29, 2012 (Issue # 1724)

The Mezhdunarodny shopping center opened in the city’s Frunzensky district Friday, continuing the trend of opening retail and entertainment complexes in the same buildings as new metro stations.

Projects of shopping complexes adjacent to metro stations, such as the Ligov complex at Obvodny Kanal metro station, Zvenigorodsky complex at Zvenigorodskaya metro station, and Radius at Volkovskaya metro station, appear to have proven the attractiveness of this district to shoppers.

Mezhdunarodnaya metro station is still under construction, however, and is planned to open in December this year. By that time, another metro station in the Frunzensky district — Bukharestskaya — should be opened with a large shopping center in its building, according to data from Maris, part of the CBRE Affiliate Network.

In spite of the fact that the Frunzensky district already has another large shopping center, Rio, experts observe a lack of both retail and entertainment sites in the district and don’t predict any serious competition between the complexes.

“There will be a high demand for the Mezhdunarodny complex as it is in a highly populated area and many people will prefer a complex situated close to residential buildings to the remote Rio or Continent,” said Yelena Prozorova, assistant to the consulting and evaluation department at Maris.

The opening of Mezhdunarodnaya metro station is expected to increase the number of shoppers in the new complex.

“Mezhdunarodnaya will be the end station for a long time, which will allow it to gather customers from a significant part of the district,” said Igor Kokorev, manager of the strategic consulting department at Knight Frank St. Petersburg.

“Another important point is that a large residential complex is situated in the surroundings of the metro station and shopping center,” he added.

The Mezhdunarodny complex occupies 46,400 square meters and includes stores, a movie theater, a gym, food court and Prisma supermarket occupying about 2,000 square meters that is the 10th store in the Finnish chain to open in St. Petersburg. The new complex will also have parking space for 300 cars.

Based on the experience of other complexes in similar locations with metro stations and residential buildings, Knight Frank experts predict the Mezhdunarodny complex will be successful on the market.

Its nearest competitors have a number of disadvantages in comparison. For example, Rio is not located near a metro station or residential buildings.

“Bukharestsky will be housed in a building with a metro station that will see a smaller volume of metro passengers,” said Kokorev.

Maris specialists are however less pessimistic about Bukharestskaya metro and believe it could generate more customers as it will be used not only by local residents but also by employees of companies based in the Continent business center.

The Yuzhny Polus mall that already exists in the Frunzensky district is located far from the metro station and has a weaker structure of anchor tenants, according to Knight Frank experts.

“As the number and quality of retail and entertainment services in these complexes is approximately the same, the competition will be not significant due to the large residential area in the Frunzensky district,” said Prozorova.