Chinese developer Wanda Group will open 17 Wanda Plaza shopping centres by the end of this month.
The rapid succession of openings, including three that launched on November 30, accounts for 34.7 per cent of the company’s total new malls for this year. It comes after a period of strategic retreat for the firm following government criticism over its mounting debts.
The largest of the three malls opened so far is the 158,000sqm Shapingba Wanda Plaza, built in the largest city in Western China, Chongqing. It is the developer’s seventh mall in the city, with an eighth reportedly now complete and pending launch.
The 14 projects remaining will open in second and third-tier cities in Inner Mongolia, Yunnan, Jiangsu, Anhu, Henan, Hunan and Fujian provinces. Of these, the largest is the Nanjing Lishui Wanda Plaza mega-development, a 700,000sqm mixed-use commercial, retail and residential complex.
Upon completion of the upcoming projects, Wanda will have achieved a portfolio of 285 Wanda Plaza shopping centres, having opened 49 this year. The firm plans to build 1000 Wanda Plazas by the end of 2028.