The 93 million euro Akropolis shopping mall in Kaunas opens its doors April 10. Some 200 retailers will be accommodated in the 81,500-square-meter complex, which will also boast a 20-lane bowling hall, an ice skating rink, a seven-screen movie theater and a casino. The mall will create around 1,000 new jobs and is expected to attract 35,000 to 45,000 visitors daily. Two international brand-name restaurants 's Pizza Hut and Kentucky Fried Chicken 's will launch operations in Lithuania when the mall opens for business.
Riga's Alfa shopping mall will soon get an 18 million euro upgrade that will include a 4.3 million multiplex cinema house, Cinamon. Acta, an investment fund and owner of the mall, will invest in expansion, while Cinamon's owner, Baltic Multiplex Ventures, will build the cinema, whose eight halls will take up some 4,000 square meters. Reconstruction of the shopping center should be completed in November 2008.
Hemtex, Sweden's home textile chain, announced it is planning to open 20 's 25 stores in the Baltic countries, with the first store opening its doors in Parnu this summer. "How fast this takes place depends on finding premises," CEO Anders Jansson told the Aripaev daily. "Naturally the ambition is to grow as fast as possible." Jansson said that Hemtex has for years been buying goods from Estonia's Kreenholm, which is owned by another Swedish company, Boras Wavferi. Both companies hail from the same town 's Boras.
