Meinl European Land invests EUR 150 mln. in Odessa shopping centre

Big commercial real estate player, Meinl European Land (MEL) announced about their first huge project in Ukraine. They are going to build regional shopping centre in Odessa, south of Ukraine to 2009. But experts say that cost of development is very high, and that fact will reflect on IRR, which is average 12% despite on market conditions with 25-30% in fact. Average construction for such centre is about USD 72 mln, they say.

This project is quite big for Odessa, the 2^nd prefferable place for commercial property investing in Ukraine. And retail depelops very dynamicly here. As I stated before, average single purchase for Odessa retailers was set for USD 19-20 level. That’s very good even for Europe market. So MEL project should be successful and we see a beginning of long-term strategic investments in Ukraine.