After the end of hostilities, our country should quickly revive and become even better. For this, many issues related to infrastructure need to be resolved, and one of the important ones will be the restoration and further development of Ukraine’s commercial real estate. According to Yevgenia Loktionova (the UTG director), if previously the activity of developers was concentrated on millionaire cities and the suburbs of Kyiv, in the near future the most promising growth trend will be shopping malls located in regional and district centers with an area of ​​up to 12,000 square meters. “The creation of small shopping malls networks with a set of essential goods operators throughout Ukraine is interesting not only from the business point of view, but also in terms of social programs for displaced people” the manager emphasizes. “The success of this format is confirmed by Poland’s experience.”

There are 24 regions, 490 districts, 459 cities and 885 urban-type settlements in Ukraine. But professional commercial real estate previously developed mainly only in a few of the country’s largest cities. However, as recent months have shown, military actions force people from large cities to move en masse to small regional or district centers because of shelter search. Therefore, due to population migration, small cities in the central and western regions of Ukraine, which previously had 20-30 thousand people, are seeing a significant increase in the number of their residents. According to the UTG experts’ calculations, after the war regional and district centers will become at least twice as large due to the fact that many of the displaced people will settle permanently in calmer areas. “However, there are no professional shopping malls in such provincial cities, and the old department stores of Soviet times and markets are still operating, or there was a spot presence of some network operators such as “Fora” or “Eva” – the UTG head believes. – “It is clear that such stores simply cannot satisfy the demand of a more demanding population that has migrated from large regional centers and is used to visiting modern professional malls.”

Therefore, according to Yevgenia Loktionova, after the victory commercial real estate of Ukraine will most likely follow the development path of our closest neighbor – Poland. “In this country, professional shopping malls are located throughout the territory, even in small towns with a population of 20,000 or more. In particular, the GALERIA TWIERDZA KŁODZKO shopping mall with an area of ​​30,000 square meters is successfully operating in the city of Kłodzko with a population of 26,000. And despite the fact that Ukrainians have not yet reached Poland’s income level, as the experience of the neighboring country’s commercial facilities shows, professional real estate in Ukraine small cities has all the prospects for development. All the more, taking into account the completely empty market in such places and practically no competition” she emphasizes.