MAB Development and Sonae Sierra have formed a joint venture to develop a new EUR 120 mln shopping centre at the former Karstadt building in Solingen, a city in the North Rhine-Westphalia region of Germany.

The joint venture has purchased the former Karstadt premises from HLG/Movesta for the project which is to begin this summer. The opening is slated for between end-2013 and early 2014.

MAB, a European developer based in the Netherlands, and Lisbon-headquartered international shopping centre group Sonae Sierra each hold 50% in the project company. The volume for the project is about EUR 120 mln.

The partners said that the shopping centre will significantly contribute to the revitalisation of the inner-city market place. The densely populated catchment area is located between the cities of Wuppertal, Düsseldorf and Cologne and comprises approximately 270,000 inhabitants.

Known as the Hofgarten project, the shopping centre will involve the development of a three-level shopping centre on the 13,000-m2 Karstadt plot. The mall will feature German and national retailers, restaurants and services over 28,000 m2.

The project includes a 600-space underground car park and there will also be a link to the central bus station, located in front of the existing building, as well as to the pedestrian zone.

Fernando Guedes de Oliveira, CEO of Sonae Sierra: ‘The city of Solingen presented a great opportunity for the rebirth of a modern and sustainable shopping and leisure destination that will allow rehabilitating a considerable part of a downtown area.’

‘Together with our partner we look further to advance with the most innovative solutions in terms of retail and leisure, while taking in to account the environment and social needs of the Solingen inhabitants. This project will represent another step forward in our commitment of developing high quality products for the German market.’

The joint venture with Sonae Sierra comes just over a year after MAB announced it was teaming up with Spanish retail specialist Neinver to develop factory outlet centres in France and in Germany.

MAB Development and Neinver are working together on several outlet projects in France under the The Style Outlets name, including Roppenheim and Honfleur, in Normandy.

MAB develops commercial real estate in the Netherlands, France and Germany. Sonae Sierra is a developer-manager of shopping centres. It owns 49 malls in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany, Greece, Romania and Brazil with a total gross lettable area of about 2 million m2.