Cassovia shopping centre

With 47,000 visitors on the first day of the successful inauguration of the Dannubia shopping centre in Bratislava, VINCI Construction Grands Projets was once again approached to design and build a shopping centre in Slovakia. The company signed a contract with Carrefour in 2000 to build the Cassovia shopping centre in Košice, the second-largest city in eastern Slovakia. The first stone was laid on October 24, 2000. The project was delivered in June 2001, and the centre was opened to the public in August 2001.

BACKGROUND

Located on the Hornád River, Košice, Slovakia’s second-largest city by population, is the capital of the region of the same name and a major road and railway junction. Its influence goes beyond regional frontiers and stretches across eastern Slovakia. Since the 1960s, its population has increased considerably from 80,000 to 240,000. This is explained by a high demand for industrial labour, particularly in steelworks, and by the annexation of several villages by the city. The city of Košice has also seen strong economic growth these past few years, which has translated into lower unemployment, with the number of jobseekers falling from 21,000 in 2001 to 7,900 in 2008, and an increase in average gross wages from €474 to €750, thereby enhancing the population’s purchasing power.

TECHNIQUE

Commerce is a sector that is expanding steadily in this area and represents around 20% of jobs in this region. This is the reason for shopping centres mushrooming on the periphery of the city.
We were commissioned to build a shopping centre located in a consumer basin of nearly 310,000 potential customers. The project consisted of a 13,000 m² hypermarket, a 6,500 m² shopping gallery and a carpark with 1,200 spaces.
The building’s originality derives from the cladding of its secondary façades. Also serving a decorative purpose, the cladding enabled us to protect and insulate the structure’s main façade. The singularity of the secondary façades comes from the choice of colours used in the cladding, doors and sleeper walls. The main façade consists of cassettes and aluminium joints for the two entries and supermarkets.
As the shopping centre was built on very uneven ground, significant earth-moving and a general levelling of extensions were required.

According to the Republic of Slovakia’s statistical office, the commercial sector has seen a 46% increase in staffing between 2001 and 2008.

IMPACT

Located in the south of the city, at the intersection of numerous transport routes, the Cassovia shopping centre in Košice, Slovakia occupies 19 hectares. This project was developed and built from start to finish by VINCI Construction Grands Projets, right from scouting for land to delivering the project to operators, in partnership with the Manta Group, a Slovakian promoter of the project. This construction project supports the country’s economic and demographic growth. Cassovia was inaugurated on August 21, 2001. It was successfully opened to the public the next day with nearly 60,000 customers present. This centre is particularly attractive due to its façade with transparent colours, large interiors, choice of materials used as well as the building’s harmony of colours and design.
So, the Košice shopping centre became a new reference for VINCI Construction Grands Projets in the commercial and functional real estate sector in central Europe.

Project participants

Client
Avril Group A.S. & Arcola Group A.S.

Key figures

Implementation dates
July 2000 to July 2001

Built surface
55,000 m²

1 Carrefour hypermarket: 13,000 m²

6 supermarkets: 6,000 m²

50 fashion boutiques: 4,500 m²

Restaurants: 1,000 m²

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