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For ECE, November 14, 2008 is a very special date: on this day the European market leader in the inner city shopping center sector takes into operation its 100th shopping center. In the Arkády Pankrác in Prague, approximately 140 shops are presented on three retail floors with a total retail space of approximately 45,000 square meters. “The successful opening of Arkády Pankrác is a milestone for ECE“, states Alexander Otto, CEO of the ECE management. “As our 100th shopping center in Europe, it stands for a long-term oriented company strategy.“
This approach of long-term planning and ongoing engagement in the respective locations has paid off during ECE’s more than 40-year-long history. Founded in 1965 by the mailorder business pioneer Werner Otto, the company opened its first shopping center on October 23, 1969: the Franken-Zentrum in Nürnberg-Langwasser, which after several expansion and optimizing measures is still one of the most successful centers in Germany. After that, further developments followed, among them the Alstertal-Einkaufszentrum in Hamburg-Poppenbüttel (1970) and the Rhein-Center in Köln-Weiden (1972). They, too, were repeatedly enlarged and modernized in the course of the following years so as to meet the rising customer requirements. And just like all ECE developments, they remain under our management until now.
After further center developments in the late 70ies, ECE began building up additional economic mainstays. With the sectors Office, Traffic and Industries the company entered the office building sector as well as the traffic real estate and industrial building market. Relying on inner city locations instead of building on greenfield sites, ECE was one of the pioneers in the development of shopping centers. Here, the aim was to vitalize the inner city, preserve its charm and to tie up the residents’ buying power. Shopping centers such as the Löhr-Center in Koblenz (1984), the Allee-Center Remscheid (1986) or the Saarpark-Center Neunkirchen (1989) still prove how successfully this aim was achieved. In the experience of ECE, attractive shopping centers with high-quality architecture, management and a top-quality sectorial mix, which create “lively market places“, always generate positive impulses for the inner cities.
ECE also continued to follow the strategy of integrated locations when completely new perspectives opened up after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Meanwhile, there are 24 projects in the Germany’s eastern states, among them the Promenaden in the Central Station Leipzig (1997), which is considered to be one of the world’s most beautiful train stations today. The architectural variety of the shopping centers becomes apparent when comparing the Potsdamer Platz Arkaden in Berlin (1998), the Altmarkt-Galerie Dresden (2002) and the futuristic Berliner Eastgate (2005), for example. The same is true for the projects in the old West German states: Here, striking examples comprise the Schloss-Arkaden in Brunswick (2007), for which ECE commissioned the reconstruction of a complete historic palace facade, the Ettlinger Tor in Karlsruhe (2005) or the Limbecker Platz Essen (1st construction phase 2008).
Another aspect of the long-term oriented company philosophy are the endeavors to achieve the maximum possible environmental sustainability of ECE projects. Most shopping centers have already switched to green power. As the first German shopping center, the Ernst-August- Galerie is expected to receive a LEED certificate – the internationally accepted standard for sustainable buildings. For example, the Ernst-August-Galerie is the first shopping center, in which an electric mall cooling can be completely dispensed with thanks to natural ventilation. In this way, 35 tons of CO2 can be saved. Starting next spring, a 250 kilowatt photovoltaic system for energy generation is going to be taken into operation on the roof of the center. However, the activities of ECE are not restricted to Germany. With the beginning of the company’s internationalization in 1996 new markets were opened up in Eastern Europe. August 2001 saw the opening of the first ECE center outside Germany, the Galeria Dominikanska in the Polish city of Wroclaw. Soon the shopping center Árkád örs vezér tere in the Hungarian capital Budapest followed. Meanwhile, ECE manages 20 centers outside Germany, which are located in seven countries (Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Austria, Greece, Turkey, Qatar), among them the Galerie Vakovka in Brno (Czech Republic) and the Metro-City in Istanbul (Turkey). With the Arkády Pankrác in Prague ECE is opening its 100th shopping center and celebrating an anniversary. The arcades have been completely rented out months ago, among others to the fashion shops Peek & Cloppenburg, H&M, New Yorker and Zara as well as an electronics store and a big supermarket. Through its international leasing activities ECE supports the tenant exchange between Germany and other countries. Thus, apart from numerous Czech
retailers, there are many international brands offering a wide range of goods in Prague’s new shopping center. The Arkády Pankrác, which are located between residential and office buildings in the Pankrác quarter near the inner city, also boast excellent public transport connections: They can be easily reached via the city highway by car, and the basement of the center provides a direct connection to the metro station. “There has been no flop in ECE’s more than 40-year-long history“, Alexander Otto, CEO of the ECE management since July 2000, states in retrospect. The concept of success, which remains valid until this day, is quality and reliability: ECE teams observe budgets and dates, exclusively choosing top downtown locations or neighborhood centers for shopping projects. They also attach great importance to individual architecture and to a retail mix, which is individually adjusted to the respective location. Various prices and awards prove that this strategy is finding approval, as for example the main price of the International Council of Shopping Centers 2008 for the Galeria Krakowska, the award of the Urban Land Institute 2006 for the Potsdamer Platz Arkaden or the architecture award for the Galeria Lódzka 2003.
ECE has been developing, planning, realizing, leasing and managing big shopping centers since 1965 and is European market leader in this sector with 100 shopping centers in management. The shopping centers are located in Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Turkey, Greece and Qatar and generate an annual turnover of 12 billions euro with 10,000 shops on 3 million square meters of retail space. 26 other shopping centers are already in the process of building or planning throughout Europe, for example the Europe Center in Sofia, the Thier-Areal in Dortmund and the Skyline Plaza in Frankfurt. In its sectors office, traffic and industries ECE is now e.g. realizing the ThyssenKrupp Quartier in Essen and is competence partner in the realization of the BahnhofCity in the Vienna Central Station" (CS della Societŕ).
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