Klépierre: SUD strengthens La Roche-Sur-Yon Retail Park

16 Oct '08

4 min read

The Sud Avenue retail alleys open their doors today: 35 additional retailers covering 24,000 sq.m. GLA in south La Roche-sur-Yon. This retail park gives the southern entrance to the city a new face, modern and esthetically appealing.

A new generation retail park Sud Avenue is very well located, just 300 meters from the A87 freeway and along the busy departmental highway 747 that leads to la Tranche-sur-Mer.

It strengthens the existing retail array, which features a Leclerc hypermarket leader in La Roche-sur-Yon, as well as a Leroy Merlin outlet (9 980 sq.m. of sales area) and a Gamm Vert (5 992 sq.m. of sales area), which opened in February and March of this year, respectively.

35 new stores added to the retail mix
Nearly 90% of the stores have tenants on October 15, 2008, while 2 retailers are in the process of signing a lease (Mim and Casa) and the remaining two spaces are in the advanced phase of negotiations. A total of 21 stores open today, with the others scheduled to open progressively between now and the end of January 2009.

Sud Avenue has two clothing locomotives, Kiabi (1 450 sq.m.) and C&A (1 695 sq.m.), for which this is the first location in the French department of Vendée. Lidl (1 500 sq.m.), Joué Club (1 440 sq.m.), Décorial (1 437 sq.m.) and Twinner (1 300 sq.m.) are the other mid-sized units in this new retail park.

Designed by local area architect Jean-Claude Pondevie, Sud Avenue is made up of 2 twin buildings, each one measuring 250 meters in length from one end to the other of the D747. Each has landscaped parking with 400 slots, boasting high branch trees, shrubs and ground cover. The façades are gun-metal gray in color and highly graphic, made of galvanized steel plates and pleated panels. The path open to visitors, between the main façade and the outer walls of the stores, is protected. The original slope of the land was respected and enhanced. Each parking lot features a restaurant with an eco-roof and a wooden outdoor dining deck.

Conceived by the city in 2003, the project balances the urban area's retail mix. Managed by Jean Ernst throughout the development phase, in 2005 this task was entrusted to Progest, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Klépierre (Paris:LI) since 2007. Ségécé, which is also a Klépierre subsidiary, intervened as delegated client project manager and took part in the lease-up effort via its branch office Ségémurs.

Klépierre invested 22.2 million euros in this project with 1.8 million euros annual nets rents expected. It owns 54% of the floor area of the shopping center, while the rest is co-owned by 15 retailers, most of them from the Vendée.

The tight timetable for completion was respected, for both the construction and interior layout phases.

Sud Avenue led to the creation of 200 jobs (FTE).

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Klépierre, a listed real estate investment company, owns real estate assets valued at 12 billion euros on June 30, 2008. Its portfolio is 86% composed of shopping center properties (242 shopping centers located in 10 different countries), while 5% of its real estate assets are retail properties owned via Klémurs, and 9% are office properties.

On October 8, 2008, Klépierre acquired Scandinavia's number 1 shopping center owner Steen & Strøm, which has 30 shopping center properties located in Norway, Sweden and Denmark with a value of nearly 2.5 billion euros in total share. Steen & Strøm also manages 26 shopping centers on behalf of third party clients. This acquisition extends the European presence of Klépierre to 13 countries.

Klépierre

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