The Japan Council of Shopping Centers has announced that 52 commercial facilities will open in Japan in 2015.

The number of new SCs is expected to remain at nearly the same level as 2014, in which 55 facilities opened. There will be 11 large SCs with store space exceeding 30,000 square metres.

Of these stores, the Aeon Group will open SCs in Okinawa, Nagakute (Aichi Prefecture), Tokoname (Aichi Prefecture), Shijonawate (Osaka Prefecture), and Aira (Kagoshima Prefecture), for a total of five SCs. Although that number is smaller than the six stores that opened in 2014, the Group will continue its aggressive approach.

Mitsui Fudosan, which opened only one SC in 2014, will open LaLaport in Fujimi (Saitama Prefecture), Ebina (Kanagawa Prefecture), and Tachikawa (Tokyo Prefecture) in 2015. The developer is also planning a joint development at the Expoland site (Osaka Prefecture). However, the JR Oita Station building and a new centre from Izumi in Hatsukaichi City (Hiroshima Prefecture) are the only other SCs in the pipeline, and the number of large-scale facilities they are opening is on a decreasing trend.

Originally, more than 60 SCs were expected to open in 2014. However, there were many postponements due to soaring construction costs, as well as labour shortages, and the pace of development is slowing down.

As for the location of SCs, the number of those in the central district increased to 12 in 2014 from six in the previous year, and the Japan Council of Shopping Centers has explained that there will be more opportunities to open SCs in the central district in the future.

In total, there were 3,174 SCs at the end of 2014 (3,134 at the end of 2013). Although there was a tendency towards decreased income for existing facilities and a downturn following the consumption-tax hike, sales volume is expected to exceed the previous year’s 28.9 trillion yen with the opening of new facilities.

photo:aeon mall Okayama