Realtors Put Rio on the Map
By Denis Maternovsky, Staff Writer

Moscow Times
Dec 7 2004

For MT

With dozens of new shopping centers built over the past few years or
in the pipeline, it is difficult for new projects to stand out from
the crowd. But developers of the Rio mall in southwestern Moscow are
giving it their best shot.

When it opens its doors in March 2005, Rio, which has a total area
of 92,000 square meters and a location on Sevastopolsky Prospekt,
will be one of the largest malls in relative proximity to the city
center, as the majority of large retail developments have to date
been along the MKAD, or Moscow Ring Road.

In addition to housing a 12,000-square-meter discounter Nash
Hypermarket — the first such project by the Sedmoi Kontinent
supermarket chain — Rio will have a six-screen movie theater, over
150 shops, five restaurants, and a large food court.

The shopping center is being developed by the Tashir Group — a
regional enterprise that has no previous experience in Moscow. In
addition to working on the redevelopment of the GUM in Yerevan,
Armenia, the company opened a 10,000-square-meter shopping center
in Tula in October, and will shortly open two 30,000-square-meter
centers in Kaluga and Yaroslavl, according to Vitaly Yefimkin, Rio’s
project manager.

Tashir is also planning to begin work on a 27-story,
34,000-square-meter office center in southwestern Moscow next March,
he added.

Yefimkin declined to disclose the total investment in the Rio project,
but experts polled by The Moscow Times estimated it to be roughly
$80 million.

Apart from being one of the first large-scale retail projects carried
out by a regional developer in Moscow and having the first Nash
Hypermarket store, it is also Rio’s location that sets it apart,
said Maxim Gasiev, retail director at Colliers International.

Colliers International designed the shopping center’s concept and is
acting as its exclusive leasing agent.

“This is one of the first big shopping centers [to be built] along the
third transport ring, which so far has been characterized by lack of
retail locations. But as the Moskva-City project is moving forward,
we’ll see more and more developments there,” Gasiev said.

Anna Savenko, retail consultant at Noble Gibbons in association
with CB Richard Ellis, said it was too early to say whether Sedmoi
Kontinent’s involvement will benefit the project.

“Sedmoi Kontinent has a reputation as an ‘expensive’ supermarket chain,
and to what extent its new [cheaper] concept will be accepted by the
consumer is open to debate,” she said.

Southwestern Moscow has seen explosive development in recent years,
with shopping centers such as Cheryomushki, Kaluzhsky, Cherry and
Panorama all opening over the past year, Savenko said. Furthermore,
Ramenka has announced plans to build a 20,000-square-meter Ramstore
— located across the road from Rio — sometime in 2005, which may
create problems for the mall, she added.

But Gasiev said that with its markedly smaller size and unfavorable
location on the “morning side” of the street — as opposed to Rio’s
site along the road coming out of the center — Ramstore was not
likely to be major competition for the development.