Today the new shopping valley “Nordika” opened its doors in Vilnius. One of the biggest shopping centers in Vilnius, next to IKEA, established for families and households, will change the habits of Vilnius residents, encouraging them to go shopping further from the city’s centre and residential areas.
Located at 3 Vikingu Street, Nordika shopping valley will open in two phases. With the first phase, 20 000 sq. meters area will be opened from 40 000 sq. meters planned. The total investment in the shopping valley will be more than 50 mln. Euros.
More than 30 local and international stores and restaurants will operate in “Nordika”, including “Rimi Hypermarket”, “Elektromarkt”, “McDonald’s”, and one of the biggest in the Baltic countries “Baby City/Toy City” store.
The visitors will find a bookstore in the shopping valley as well, a tailor shop, as well as stores for bikes, watches, pets, jewelry shop and cafes, bakery.
More comfort for those who will be shopping in “Nordika” will be brought with more than 2000 capacity parking lot, with parking places that are wider than is usual in Lithuania, for more convenience for families.
With the second phase in the spring of 2016, around 20 000 sq. meters more of “Nordika” space will be opened. Its doors in the shopping valley will open “Senukai”, and other famous brands.
According to the major investor in “Nordika”, Peter Gage Morris, the decision to build “Nordika” in Southern Vilnius, which lacked shopping centres this big up to now, was made based on the evaluations of the positive area‘s perspectives and that because of the good transport system you can reach the place quickly and conveniently.
“It is common in the Western countries that big shopping centres establish themselves in the city’s suburbs, where the conditions of traffic are better, there are less traffic jams and it is easy to arrive quickly. We will encourage the residents of Vilnius to change their shopping habits as well – the popularity of IKEA proves the fact they accept it. Besides, it is worth noting that even though Vikingu Street is based in the south of Vilnius, because of convenient transport system you can reach it in 5 minutes”, P. G. Morris says.
According to the investor, 200,000 residents can reach “Nordika” in 5 to 10 minutes, and with the building of the Western bypass this number will increase. According to him more even distribution is beneficial to a balanced development of the city.
In a gala opening ceremony of the shopping valley Vilnius city’s mayor Remigijus Šimašius participated as well.
„I am glad that more and more foreign brands choose Vilnius, bringing to our market quality, new brands and experience. The „Nordika“ shopping valley will definitely become a popular shopping place amongst families from Vilnius city, Vilnius area and Minsk because of good road infrastructure, short ride from the airport and city center and neighborhood of IKEA. The team of Vilnius municipality continues its work to make Southern part of Vilnius attractive for business. There should be more commercial, administrational and industrial objects here. I hope that soon we will be able to reach the airport through this tetritory by biciyle.“, said Mr. Šimašius.
The investors and developers of “Nordika” shopping valley are Peter Gage Morris, Barry Nibuurs and James Torpey. The project is developed by JSC VPH, and the general construction contractor is JSC “YIT Kausta”. The building and the surrounding environment was projected by a Lithuanian company “Unitectus”, consulted by a well-known international architects office “Chapman Taylor”.