UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 18, 2010. X5 Retail Group N.V. opened its first Perekrestok supermarket in Yekaterinburg. The ribbon-cutting ceremony was attended by Mayor of Yekaterinburg Arkadiy Chernetskiy and Vice Mayor Viktor Konteev.
The total area of the store comes to 964 sq m, which is actually a bit smaller than the standard area of the chain’s outlets, that is, about 1,200 sq m. This is why the product range comprises only 12,000 items instead of the standard 16,000 items.
‘The current shopping space makes it impossible to display everything we have got. We are planning to expand in the future,’ X5 Retail Group N.V. Marketing Director Karina Chernikova announced at a press conference that accompanied the opening of the store.
Perekrestok is located on the ground floor in the main building of Antey Business Center. The shopping space was rented for a period of ten years.
‘The talks lasted eighteen months, with not a single other chain offering us the money now paid by X5 Retail Group. This company offers the highest price in town,’ Antey Business Center Director Andrei Gavrilovskiy observed.
As for the lacking parking space, the business center owner promised to solve the problem in the nearest future when a ground parking lot will be put. The construction was reported to start very soon. According to Andrei Gavrilovskiy, it will take between six and eight months.
However, the opening date for the business center itself was shifted several times at the time. For one, the third extension of Antey still hasn’t been commissioned, even though it was supposed to have opened in July 2009.