NHOOD is a corporate brand for a service company; it is not a brand of shopping malls. Aquarelle is a strong brand with an attractive “living in color” slogan. Within the Aquarelle brand we pay much attention to building our relationships with B2C and B2B partners. In B2C this is a family brand which is close to local residents due to social projects, working with local communities, and memorable events.
In B2B we build relationships with all partners following the local-global principle. As a service company we do our best to manage a facility both on the spot and strategically, while our partners develop client services. The Aquarelle brand won’t be revised; it will gain further traction instead.
A little more than a year ago CEETRUS opened Aquarelle in Pushkino. The first year is normally most challenging, but in this case it concurred with the crisis unique to the world history. What’s your assessment of the year’s results and what tasks are set by NHOOD for the given facility?
Aquarelle Pushkino shopping mall opened its doors only 3 months before the events last March. The first year after the project’s launch is definitely very important, so we believe the first year can be reckoned starting in December 2020. We see positive dynamics expressed in burgeoning traffic which has been boosted by the opening of a movie theatre, Prostorum leisure centre, and Zamania entertainment centre. Today our main objective is to achieve a hundred-percent occupancy. According to our plan, we can do it before the end of 2021.
Please say a few words about your new space Prostorum Multispace that was opened in Aquarelle last December. What would you tell those who believe that the time of public spaces is left back in 2019?
Prostorum is the project we dreamt of for our SC as a venue for residents of Pushkino district. It is with the local community that we kept creating this project throughout two years. This is a centre of leisure and culture within a shopping sanctuary. We know for sure that if Prostorum becomes the most popular leisure centre with people of Pushkino this will be one of the key moments of success for Aquarelle. We’ve developed a multipronged plan for this venue including events, lectures, workshops, integration between external and internal partners. This is a distinctive feature and a competitive edge. Aquarelle Pushkino is generally a glorious incarnation of a multipurpose approach to contemporary shopping centers. We have unique constituents: a pump track, a fountain zone, developed adjacent territory, and now Prostorum to boot. Yet we do not forget about basic things like a comfortable underground parking garage as well as other essential services which make this property a city centre.
How did you come to terms with your tenants during the pandemic? What changes in terms of commerce do you plan for your tenants under the management of NHOOD?
We made a decision for ourselves not to collect a rent from our tenants during the closure of retail facilities and this stance of ours was supported by many other property owners. When business activities were resumed, we