An Athens developer is building what will be be Greece’s largest retail mall it was reported in the Wall Street Journal. The proposed mall will be 185 million square meters.
The developer is betting that Greeks and tourists will turn out for an in-person shopping experience regardless of large malls continuing to struggle elsewhere.
The shopping centre, which would be one of Europe’s largest retail complexes, is part of an €8 billion ($AUD11.45 billion) real-estate project known as the Ellinikon.
The plan calls for a new mini city of about 30,000 residents south of Athens, on the site of the city’s former airport. There have been many plans over the last 20 odd years about how to utilise the old airport site. And none of them have come to fruition. In 2014 at the height of Greece’s economic struggles it was proposed as a site of an Athens’ start-up hub, but that did not eventuate. It will be interesting to see if the idea of a major mall and mini city will finally transform the abandoned airport site.
