OREANDA-NEWS. October 13, 2011. Kaliningrad’s Epicenter retail development, the core asset of Renaissance-Nedvizhimost, a closed-ended real estate fund managed by Renaissance Real Estate, has joined the ranks of Russia’s leading retail developments with its inclusion on the GUD retail committee’s TOP 100 list. The list, based on a thorough review covering Moscow and regional cities across Russia, includes operational shopping centres with gross building areas exceeding 5,000 m2. GUD’s team of experts visited and evaluated centres against more than 30 criteria, including location, accessibility, retail concept and property management.

Epicenter is a community shopping centre, located in Kaliningrad, targeting middle-income customers, with a gross leasable area of 17,500 m2. It has more than 90 tenants, including a hypermarket, multi-screen cinema, bowling alley, children’s entertainment zone; and consumer electronics, clothing and footwear shops; in addition to restaurants, cafes and a number of specialty shops.

Originally built in 1925, the property was carefully refurbished over 2006-2007, with full regard to maintaining its historical character and heritage, while upgrading to cater for contemporary lifestyles. It is now one of the most popular retail destinations in Kaliningrad, much-admired by local residents for its convenient, central location, middle-income market niche and wide range of shops, restaurants, and entertainment attractions.

The TOP 100 award not only reflects the inherent qualities of this much-loved Kaliningrad development, but also Renaissance Real Estate’s instrumental role in improving the tenant mix and occupancy. In turn, this has enhanced the value of Epicenter as an investment asset and secured consistent, strong returns for the Renaissance-Nedvizhimost fund and an attractive dividend yield for the fund’s shareholders.

“Extensive efforts by the whole Real Estate team have made it possible to improve the property retail concept, strengthening the tenant mix with well-known national retail brands, sign income-guaranteeing long leases for about 90% of gross leasable area and increase the overall accrued rent by more than 50% in just over two years,” says Ekaterina Konstantinova, head of Renaissance Real Estate. “The portfolio managers were also able to secure building full occupancy, never falling below 98.5% of GLA even during crisis when many successful Moscow and St. Petersburg shopping centres recorded vacancy rates in the range of 20-30%.”

The investment property has been owned by the Renaissance-Nedvizhimost f