Grand Opening of RIO in St. Petersburg

This June 15, the ceremony of a new RIO Mall inauguration was held in St. Petersburg. The 70,000 sq.m. GBA mall features 120 stores by leading operators of both federal and international retail. RIO project was financed, developed and constructed by Tashir Group. Tashir has invested a total of 120M USD in the project.Over 100,000 local citizens visited the opening party.

The RIO shopping and entertainment centre project is part of the Russia—Slovakia international agreement on cultural and trade exchange, meant to encourage experience exchange and enhance economic cooperation between the countries. Thus the symbolic red ribbon was cut by Terenty Mescheryakov, Head of Frunzensky district of St. Petersburg, together with Peter Osvald, the Consul General of Slovakia in St. Petersburg, and Artak Evoyan, Vice President of Tashir Group.

The new RIO Mall is located in Frunzensky district, one of the largest in the city, at 2a Fuchika Street. 17 routes of social and commercial transport make the mall’s accessibility truly unique; and by end of 2012, Bukharestskaya metro station is scheduled to open within walking distance from the mall. The area can be conveniently reached by residents of Kupchino, Moskovsky, Nevsky, Pushkinsky and Kolpinsky districts. RIO can boast its city-largest mall-installed ground parking lot, big enough for 1,700 cars, equaling 1 car per 15 sq.m. of retail area.

The mall’s anchors include O’Key food hypermarket, Nash Dom DIY hypermarket, H&M, Detsky Mir, Eldorado, Cinema Star multiplex, and Key computer centre. Some of the shopping gallery operators are Rendez-Vous, Reserved, Cropp Town, Mohito, House, Justice, Mothercare, C&A, L’Etoile, O`stin, Gloria Jeans, Snezhnaya Koroleva, Incity, Centro and many more.

RIO mall in St. Petersburg has gathered a plethora of entertainments together, offering a large ice skating rink, a six-hall Cinema Star multiplex and a kids’ entertainment centre PlayLab. The restaurants and food court zone presents large chain operators, i.e. Comedy Café, Shokoladnitsa, McDonald’s, Tashir Pizza, Teremok, Kroshka-Kartoshka, Subway, and Cinnabon.

To celebrate the new RIO, a concert featuring Russian stars was organized for the guests. RIO in St. Petersburg added to Tashir’s portfolio to bring the number of its operating malls to 22 and RIOs, to 14. The average mall’s traffic is estimated at up to 40,000 people per day.