For Kyiv’s Central Department Store, or TsUM, it’s goodbye, Lenin and hello, modernity.
The cramped, Soviet-era cabinets displaying tired-looking wares will be replaced by Western stores in wide-open spaces framed by glass.
TsUM – (the acronym which stands for Центральний Універсальний Магазин) is getting a more-than $100 million makeover thanks to Ukraine’s richest person, steel tycoon Rinat Akhmetov.
His ESTA Holding, which acquired the store last year, closed it last month for renovations that are set for completion by the end of 2014.
The plans by British architectural agency Benoy are ambitious. The interior will be overhauled, doubling the floor space to 45,000 square meters of glass, complemented by stone and wood.
The modern, spacious design, the owners say, will be filled with Western clothing stores, a supermarket and restaurants with a view over the city. In the interests of historical preservation, the only feature left will be the Stalinist facade of the original building, completed in 1939.
“Our approach is to protect the … noble facade and regenerate the interior so that this space will become available for [modern retail] and appropriate for the 21st century with all the technology, the sustainability of the building systems, all these things which are very modern,” said Robert Bishop, Benoy’s lead architect for the project.
To extend the floor space, the building on Kyiv’s main Khreshchatyk Street will be expanded into the courtyard behind, three levels below ground and one extra on top.
Two underground floors will provide space for 200 cars. The first underground floor will most likely house a supermarket, which the old TsUM didn’t offer.
This could be in big demand after Khreshchatyk’s main supermarket, Hastronom, closed a few years ago.
Perfumes, cosmetics and accessories will be located on the first floor.
Floors two to five will house youth apparel, clothes for men, women and kids, while the sixth level will offer household goods.
Billionaire Rinat Akhmetov
The interior of the store will be completely overhauled, becoming a glass atrium with escalators leading to a transparent roof where cafes and restaurants will provide 360-degree views of downtown Kyiv.
Design company Benoy has worked on many similar modern, hi-tech buildings in India and China as well as other Asian, Middle Eastern and European countries.
Bishop, the lead architect, has been to Kyiv a dozen times in the last year to plan the project. He described his designs not as make-up or plastic surgery for TsUM, but rather as a heart transplant.
The old interior will be ripped out and replaced with lots of open space. Glass, metal and traditional materials such as stone, leather and wood will be added to make reference to the building’s history.
We want to reach the widest audience possible.
– Andrei Sverchevsky, project manager at ESTA Holding
ESTA Holding wants to turn TsUM into the city’s number one shopping center, offering customers top brands and top service. The aim is to be for Kyiv what Harrods is to London, but on a less grand scale.
Unlike Harrods, Kyiv’s TsUM won’t have a dress code for its customers denying entry to people in dirty or sport clothes. Players from Shakhtar Donetsk football club, also owned by Akhmetov, were not allowed in the London store when they tried to enter in football attire in 2009.
“We will welcome players of Manchester United in any clothes,” joked Andrei Sverchevsky, project manager at ESTA Holding.
And unlike London’s Harrods, Kyiv TsUM will offer more affordable products.
“We want to reach the widest audience possible,” Sverchevsky said. “Kyiv has about three million residents and we want that almost all of them to become our customers. We want all of them to feel comfortable in TsUM regardless how much money they have in their pockets.”
He said it would be difficult to find one international retail operator for such a big shopping space in Kyiv. That’s why ESTA Holding will manage the department store itself, arranging contracts with smaller operators or directly with brands. They hope to bring in some famous international brands that are not present yet in Kyiv, such as H&M, Uniqlo, Banana Republic, Victoria’s Secret and others.
The center will not focus on goods and clothes made by local Ukrainian producers, as it did throughout its history.
The new concept for the Kyiv Central Department store, or TsUM, shows how the place will look after a $100 million reconstruction is completed in 2014. (Courtesy)
“Our primary goal is to give Kyivans high-quality and civilized shopping they may have never experienced here before,” Sverchevsky said. “If there are such Ukrainian operators which are able to meet this level [of demands], if there are such [local] brands, then they are welcome. If not, then what can we do?”
“We are not pleasing the national feelings of ‘little Russians,’ but satisfying their demand for civilized life, for the European quality of life,” he added.
Retail property specialists say the new TsUM is bound to be a success given its location and the lack of retail space available in Kyiv.
“Current vacancy rate in shopping centers in Kyiv is about one percent, which shows high demand for shopping space,” said Dmytro Topolskov, head of the research department at the Kyiv office of commercial property agency NAI Pickard.
The demand for trading spaces in Kyiv will remain stable until 2014 even though several more big shopping centers are set to open in the capital before then.
Even after Gulliver near Palats Sportu metro station, Ocean Plaza on Horkoho Street and Marmelad on Borshchahivska Street open, experts say vacancy rates in Kyiv shopping centers will remain less than 10 percent, a usual figure for developed markets.
“If the project is of good quality it usually does not have vacant spaces half a year after its opening,” Topolskov said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Faryna can be reached at [email protected].
