The Kyiv shopping and entertainment centre Smart Plaza Obolon, located near the Minska metro station, has a new owner. Since September 1, the mall belongs to Levitier, a company controlled by businessman Oleh Baliash, according to the Association of Retailers of Ukraine.
The centre had previously been owned since 2019 by the investment company Dragon Capital. The sum of the deal was not disclosed.
Building a mall network
Levitier already owns a similar shopping centre, Smart Plaza Polytech, and the company intends to link the two properties into a network with shared standards and management. Baliash said the two centres were built by the same developer and share a similar architecture, working format and, to a large extent, the same pool of tenants. He said the strategic idea was for both malls to gradually develop as a single network.
Baliash said there were no plans to drastically change the concept of Smart Plaza Obolon. He said the mall was in good technical condition and did not need large-scale capital investment, though the company would consider individual local initiatives, including developing the centre's parking infrastructure.
He added that he had no plans to resell the shopping centre and described the purchase as a long-term investment.
About the mall
Smart Plaza Obolon sits next to an exit from the Minska metro station in Kyiv. It has around 15,000 square metres of total space and 10,000 square metres of leasable retail area. Its tenants include the Silpo supermarket chain, clothing retailer Sinsay, online marketplace Rozetka, fast-food chain KFC and the EVA cosmetics and household goods chain.
Wider mall market
The sale comes amid broader activity in Kyiv's shopping centre market. In early August, one of the capital's largest malls, Guliver, near the Palace of Sports metro station, was put up for auction with a starting price of $207 million.
Another well-known Kyiv shopping centre, Metrograd, is likely to be closed and converted into a parking facility if authorities succeed in confiscating it from its Russian owners.
