A European investment consortium has broken ground on the new US$110 million outlet mall being built in the provincial capital of Chengdu.

The shopping centre will be Florentia Village’s fourth Chinese mall, following Tianjin, Shanghai and Guangzhou. The new centre is scheduled to open in the last quarter of 2-16.

The designer outlet mall is owned by Silk Road Holdings, a joint venture between Italy’s Fingen Group, a Luxemburg-based vehicle owned by Jacopo Mazzei, Gaw Capital Partners from Hong Kong, and the Sino-US Waitex group, as well as a major US institution, reports Mingtiandi. It will be managed by RDM Asia.

With 120,000 sqm of space, the Chengdu outlet will help Florentia Village group expand its chain-wide revenue base to about $940 million next year.

The first Florentia Village mall in China opened in 2011 at Tianjin. This year its three operational malls are expected to turn over about $700 million from an estimated 7 million visitors.

In 2017, the company plans three more centres – in Wuhan, Chongqing and Qingdao.

Mingtiandi reports that suburban outlet malls offering discounts on luxury goods “have appeared to be a bright spot on China’s retail scene this year, as concerns grow over a saturation of the retail market in city centres, particularly for the luxury sector”.