By: Tomasz Stepien

With shopping malls sprouting up around the country, the emphasis is now on size and the variety of services offered.

That's because competition is getting stiffer in the mall market. To compete with existing malls, developers are finding they need to construct huge complexes that offer both shopping and entertainment options.

"Developers have to build large malls if they want to compete with existing ones," said Piotr Kaszynski, retail agent with Healey & Baker real estate consulting firm.

This means a typical new mall will include multiplex cinemas, restaurants, bars and leisure activities such as bowling centers. It also means that they have to be bigger than those that came before them and that soon projects will typically encompass areas of 100,000 square meters and more.

The biggest shopping malls (see chart) to date include Centrum Bielany, developed by Sweden's Ikea in Wroclaw, or the Janki shopping center in the town of the same name by France's Casino. Both malls have 70,000 square meters of retail space and were built within the last two years.

These two malls are much larger than those that were developed in the mid-1990s, such as Ikea's version of Janki, developed in 1993 with 37,300 square meters, the Promenada, developed in 1996 with 11,000 square meters of retail space, or the Panorama shopping center in Warsaw, developed in 1993 also with 11,000 square meters of retail space .

Three years ago, mall sizes had increased somewhat with the typical projects encompassing 25,000-30,000 square meters.

That's small change nowadays.

For example, the Galeria Mokotow in Warsaw, which is being developed by Globe Trade Center and is planned for completion next year, will have 70,000 square meters of space. The mall will include a bowling alley and a multiplex cinema operated by Ster Century.

Other projects being planned include a mammoth 100,000 square-meter mall in Katowice being developed by U.K.-based Chelverton and set for completion in 2001; ING Real Estate's Zlota Center in Warsaw, which would have total space of 170,000 square meters including 50,000 square meters of retail space scheduled to open in 2003; and Tishman Speyer's 75,000 square-meter Krakow project planned for completion in 2003. All of these projects will contain a significant entertainment element including multiplex cinemas.

The push to bigger malls isn't just affecting new projects, though. It's also causing existing malls to increase their space and add new services, Kaszynski said. An example is the Promenada shopping mall in Warsaw's Praga, which recently added 12,000 square meters with a bowling alley and a multiplex cinema.

"You can clearly see that there are more customers now than before (in Promenada)," Kaszynski said. Promenada has plans to expand again by adding 15,000 square meters to accommodate a new supermarket, increasing the mall's customer appeal even further, he added.

Similar expansion is planned for Centrum Handlowe Targowek operated by Danish firm Steen&Strom. The mall has space for development of a multiplex cinema.