Today, at the Retail Annual Congress, the Retail Deed of the Year award was formally presented to Viru Centre for its transformation from a classic fashion-focused mall into a modern, fully functional city heart. In addition to the Retail Deed of the Year award, Viru Centre also won the audience favourite award.
Viru Centre underwent the biggest refresh in its history — 90% of the centre's space was thoroughly renovated and 86 new or renewed stores opened their doors. The classic retail offering is complemented by the unique Food Street and the beauty and health services concentrated on an entire dedicated floor, the Beauty Sphere (Ilusfäär).
According to Nele Peil, managing director of the Merchants' Association, the jury highlighted Viru Centre for setting a new quality standard in retail real estate development, creating a worthy, modern city heart for Tallinn. "Together with the centre's renewal, the retailers leasing space have brought exciting new concepts and solutions to the market, and the environmental friendliness of the renovation work and the centre's top-tier environmental certificates also deserve recognition," Peil said.
According to Gertti Kogermann, managing director of Viru Centre, the centre's aim was "to grow from a traditional fashion-focused shopping centre into a modern, fully functional city heart — the renewed Viru Centre has more comfortable and logical traffic flows, mini atriums have been added to the Tammeaare and Hobujaama entrances, and the centre is made more cosy and spacious by green columns featuring thousands of live plants." "We sincerely thank our customers for their patience and understanding, and even more so the centre's tenants, who all contributed to the new quality and content," Kogermann adds.
In addition to the overall Retail Deed of the Year award, the Merchants' Association also recognised the best projects in sub-categories:
- Development project of the year: "Friends with Estonian at Maxima!" — Maxima Eesti OÜ
- Cooperation project of the year in retail: "Issuing ID cards and passports in stores" — Selver AS
- Technological innovation of the year in retail: "Europe's first self-service pharmacy" — BENU pharmacy / Grab2Go
- Future-oriented solution of the year in retail: "Conceptual renewal of the centre" — Viru Keskus AS
- New concept of the year in retail — Kurna Retail Park
The Retail Deed of the Year has been presented for the tenth year in a row. The award is intended to highlight retail success stories and introduce successful retailers to a wider audience. The winner was officially announced on 4 October at the Retail Annual Congress.
Past winners of the Retail Deed of the Year:
- R-Kiosk for Estonia's first unmanned store at TalTech.
- Astri Group for the development of the Balti Jaama Turg.
- Maxima for bringing Estonia's first mobile self-scanner to market.
- Pro Optika for opening the Zeiss Vision Centre concept store.
- COOP Estonia for enabling cash services in all COOP stores.
- Rahva Raamat for its distinctive and consistently surprising shopping environment.
- Apotheka pharmacies for a new pharmacy concept and innovative promotion of healthy living.
- Circle K Eesti (Statoil Fuel & Retail Eesti AS) for building a positive image of customer service staff and shaping the reputation of the retail sector.
- The Merchants' Association and its members for the variable-hours contracts pilot project in retail.
Photos of the renewed centre: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjAXgm2