City Arkaden Klagenfurt opens

• 1st DES shopping center in Austria
• Carinthia's fashion hub
• Austrian debut for many retail chains
• 120 specialist shops – 800 jobs

The time has finally come for the 1st Deutsche EuroShop shopping center in Austria, which opens tomorrow. After one and a half year's construction time, the City Arkaden Klagenfurt is now completed. Around 120 specialist shops, cafés and restaurants spread over three storeys will open their doors in Austria's newest shopping center located on Heuplatz in Klagenfurt. All store space has been let on a long-term basis since October 2005.

40 retail chains from all over Europe are opening their first branch in the state of Carinthia, 20 of which are celebrating their debut in Austria, including Motivi (ladies' fashion) from Italy, Forte Café (restaurant) from Italy, Nes Sportswear (fashion) from Slovenia and Jeans Club (jeans) from Hungary. The project partners for the EUR 170 million project are ECE and Deutsche EuroShop. ECE is responsible for project development, general planning, leasing and the long-term management of the City Arkaden.

In architectural terms, the shopping center has a very sophisticated design. Among the highlights of the City Arkaden are an end-to-end glass roof with three rotundas flooded with light, innovative shop concepts with comprehensive service, well-known brands and a clear orientation to lifestyle and convenience, modern dining concepts, a large fountain with impressive water features, rest areas and green oases. Approximately EUR 170 million has been invested in the City Arkaden (including lessee fixtures) and around 800 new full-time and part-time jobs have been created.

Around 1,000 guests from politics, business and culture are expected to attend the opening gala celebrations on the evening of Tuesday, 28 March 2006, including the State Governor Jörg Haider and the Mayor of Klagenfurt, Harald Scheucher (Dkfm).

As a shopping and leisure time magnet for a catchment area that has around 422,000 inhabitants, the City Arkaden has over 27,000 square metres of retail space and around 3,000 square metres for service and restaurants. The mix of sectors is tailored to cater for the town in the Alps-Adriatic region and reads like a list of who's who in retail. The City Arkaden is the fashion hub of Carinthia, with highlights such as include the clothing stores P&C, C&A, Zara, S. Oliver, H&M Young Fashion and Hervis Sport, the fashion labels Mexx, Esprit, Mango, Marc O’Polo, New Yorker, Cecil, Gerry Weber, Promod and Tom Tailor, the Billa supermarket chain, the chemist Müller, the perfumery Douglas and the electrical and entertainment goods specialist Saturn. The best way for visitors to reach the City Arkaden is by public transport, via the A2 motorway or the B 83, B 91, B 95 and B 92. For car drivers, there are two car parking decks with around 880 spaces.

The project partners are ECE and Deutsche EuroShop. Hamburg-based ECE has been developing, planning, building, letting and managing major shopping centers for over 40 years. Responsible for the management of 83 city shopping centers, galleries, passages, railway stations and district centers, the company is the European market leader in this sector. A total of around 8,100 shops corresponding to around 2.4 million square metres of retail space in all ECE centers generate EUR 10 billion in sales every year. 15 additional centers are currently under construction or are being planned.

Deutsche EuroShop is Germany’s only public company, that invests solely in shopping centers in prime locations. The MDAX-listed Company currently has equity interests in 16 European shopping centers in Germany, Austria, France, Hungary, Italy and Poland. These shopping centers are primarily located in city centers and have over 580,000 square metres of leasable space with around 1,450 retail units. The investment volume is currently EUR 1.4 billion.