The gigantic City Mall to open in December 2004.

          City Mall commercial complex built in the Nahr El-Mott Dora area, is set to open by December 2004. It has 210,000 sqm of built space, of which 75,000 sqm of retail space. Out of the total area, a huge supermarket will occupy an area of 11,000 sqm, a two-floor store will cover an area of 18,000 sqm and a big international sports store will cover 2,000 sqm, while another area of 3,000 sqm will be devoted for leisure. City Mall also includes a commercial gallery with over 100 shops, 9 movie theatres, a game room, a nursery and a restaurant section with eight cafés, nine restaurants and ten fast-food places.

          City Mall’s launch will take place in two phases, this year’s end and the second in Spring 2005. There has been an obvious pick up in the trend of similar western style big shopping malls opening lately. For instance, after last year’s opening of ABC shopping mall in Ashrafieh (around 40,000 sqm), the Beirut Mall (developed by the Saudi Marketing Company) will open in Shiyah and Al Habtoor Group’s Metropolitan City Center (15,000 sqm) will open in Sin El Fil.

          The Lebanese market for big shopping malls remains far from saturated. The estimated shopping center density in Lebanon at around 23 sqm of floor space per 1000 persons, can easily rise by tenfold to around 242 sqm in 2006.