SHOPPING CENTER

A Shopping Center is a building complex functional to trade, designed according to criteria of conceptualization, development and architectural design, equipped with spaces and services that are managed in common. The main characteristic is the presence of an important brand that functions as a drawing card and permanent attraction, and even though the first complexes in Italy were identified with hypermarkets, now it can be represented also by leisure offerings or non-food complexes.

Shopping centers concentrate a large number of stores in one place, offering consumers a vast array of goods and services they can enjoy easily and immediately. Just to facilitate reaching them, shopping centers are built in areas characterized by excellent accessibility and are equipped with large parking lots.

The management of a shopping center is generally assigned to an individual who makes the decisions about the direction, trade policies, promotional activities common to the different retailers in the structure.

Official ICSC (International Council of Shopping Centers) definition, from the International Standard for European Shopping Center Types, 2006:
"A Shopping Center as a retail property that is planned, built and managed as a single entity, comprising units and “communal” areas, with a minimum gross leasable area (GLA) of 5,000 square meters (m²)."