Via/Port presents outdoor outlet shopping experience
Posted by meb at July 10th, 2008
Via/Port, boasting the title of Europe’s largest outlet center, seeks to offer its customers the ultimate outdoor shopping experience, with its grand opening set for July 29 in Kurtköy.
The center aims to allow shoppers to enjoy outdoor, outlet-style shopping, while also providing youngsters with a wealth of distractions.
Via/Port General Coordinator Muzaffer Gülöz said the project, which was carried out by the Bayraktar construction company, features a “real outlet center” as part of its shopping opportunities. Gülöz explained that the contracts signed by stores which will be opening at Via/Port specify that 75 percent of the products will be season final sale items.
Gülöz also noted that the project includes not only the shopping aspect of the outlet center, but also a five-star hotel as well as a trade fair and congress center. The work on the shopping center part of the project, which has lasted for 13 months, is set to be completed at the end of July, while the hotel and trade fair/congress are scheduled to open some time in the first quarter of 2009. The investment in Via/Port will total around $100 million.
Gülöz also said Via/Port anticipates 400,000 visitors a month to its facilities when completed, with around 20 percent of the shoppers expected to be from abroad. He noted that the outlet center’s location is only five to seven minutes from Sabiha Gökçen Airport, and that as such, talks are already under way with tourist agencies and shopping tour companies on bringing visitors by charter flight.
Gülöz commented that this outlet center resembles others abroad. “We want to attract shopping groups on chartered flights from Arab nations and Russia for three-day trips. As a part of the project, we have a hotel with a 700 bed capacity. We will have great brands. We are working with very professional companies on this front. We will have an aspect that appeals directly to tourists,” he said.
Gülöz noted that there will be around 150 stores at Via/Port and that 90 percent of the storefronts have already been rented. He said two anchor stores will be located at the outlet center, a Tesco Kipa, taking up 12,000 square meters, and an Elektro World, with 5,000 square meters.
Drawing attention to the non-shopping-related features of Via/Port, Guloz talked about the arena set aside for pony rides for younger children and go-carts and other amusement park features for older kids. He said the center boasts the Anatolian side’s largest children’s entertainment center.
Gülöz said he anticipates that shoppers visiting the center will tend to stay longer than those visiting normal city shopping malls, as part of the draw of Via/Port will be escaping the rat race of the city. He stated that just eating lunch at the center while looking out onto the lake beside it will be a truly relaxing experience for customers.
source: Today’s Zaman
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