Al Futtaim Group to Open 2 MSF Cairo City Mall

By Eliza Theiss, Associate Editor

Hollywood, CA-based 5+design has announced the opening of Cairo Festival City Mall, Egypt’s first-ever indoor-outdoor shopping center.  Located within the 32-million-square-foot master-planned Cairo Festival City, the mall sits at the center of the upscale mixed-use development still under construction in Greater Cairo’s New Cairo area.

Cairo Festival City Mall features more than 1.72 million square feet of gross leasable area and a total surface of 1.81 million square feet. While the current inauguration was more of a soft opening, the three-story mall is expected to be fully occupied by April 2014, when it will be home to an excess of 300 shops, 95 restaurants and cafes, a 16-screen Cineplex, Egypt’s first edutainment destination in the form of Kidzania indoor theme park . Anchor tenants include IKEA, whose 345,000-square-foot store is Egypt’s first, Carrefour, with an 115,765-square-foot hypermarket and two department stores: Debenhams and Marks & Spencer, the latter establishing its largest Egyptian location at mall.

The shopping center will be comprised of three areas:  Festival Center, the enclosed retail, dining and entertainment area; the Promenade, a stepped pedestrian streetscape lined with shops and cafes which connects the enclosed retail area to Festival Village, a 161,000-square-foot outdoor entertainment hub comprising  boutiques, restaurants, cafes, nightlife venues and performance areas, such as an amphitheater and dancing fountain. Amenities at the shopping mall include parking for 6,500 and gender-specific worship areas.

Located on Cairo’s ring road, 15 minutes away from Cairo International Airport, the super-regional shopping center’s catchment area includes New Cairo, Mokattam, Nasr City, Helipolis and Maadi – an area of over eight million potential customers.

Cairo Festival City Mall is owned and developed by Al-Futtaim Group Real Estate (AFGRE), Dubai-headquartered Al Futtaim’s real estate development and operations division. 5+design handled the mall’s design. According to Ahram Online, the mall has a price tag of around $1 billion (EGP 7 billion), while the cost of the entire project is estimated to top $2.46 billion (EGP 17 billion).

When completed, Cairo Festival City will comprise expansive residential areas including single-family homes of three-to five-bedroom villas and multi-family options such as two-to four-bedroom apartments. More than 2.15 million square feet of office space will also be created with tenants such as Procter & Gamble and Allianz, while Honda and Toyota have already set up shop at Festival City’s 130,000 square feet of dedicated auto showroom space. The American International School has also moved into the master-planned community, which extensively features plazas, walkways, parks and gardens.

Two hotels are planned for the Cairo’s megaproject: a business traveler oriented hotel near the office park and a 400-key luxury hotel integrated into the mall. The project has earned several accolades to date, including Best Built & Future Retail Project at the 2013 Real Estate in the Middle East Awards (details here).

AFGRE develops and operates a multimillion dollar real estate portfolio across the MENA region, including mixed-use fully integrated urban community megaprojects. AFGRE’s megaproject portfolio consists of the 56-million-square-foot Dubai Festival City, the 32-milion-square-foot Cairo Festival City and Doha Festival City (details here).