Life abhors a vacuum

You were chosen as the year’s best mall manager by tenants. How did you feel when receiving the statuette? And what does this award mean for you?

Grzegorz Czekaj, director of Galeria Echo: I felt a great sense of joy about the fact that we managed to maintain the same standard as before. This year’s award confirms the good work of the entire team I have the pleasure of managing Galeria Echo with, and for me personally it is proof that last year’s award was no fluke. It has a special character. It is awarded by tenants and for a manager of a retail facility, so there are no more demanding and ‘ruthless’ jurors. They simply cannot be accused of partiality.

How does the best manager on the market work?

The ability to listen and talk is certainly necessary. The willingness to compromise and to settle disputes should be the basis of relations with tenants. A touch of flexibility in executing the procedures in force, which, let’s be honest, do not always correspond to real life or simply do not take into account certain exceptional situations, is also useful. I dare say that an appropriate choice of co-workers, who form a true team, is half of the success in terms of good management. I have such a team and I am very grateful to them.

Galeria Echo has been undergoing some changes. Which solutions are proving to be effective on the market nowadays? And what needs to be done to attract tenants and improve the quality of a shopping centre?

Indeed, life abhors a vacuum. It would be a mistake to think that when things are good, nothing needs to be done. That would be the beginning of the end. The recommercialisation process is virtually non-stop in the mall. We are changing our tenant mix and strengthening particular retail and service lines. Right now we are starting a large process involving changes to app. 30 outlets. In 2015 Swedish retailer Jula will be opening in the centre and the preparation of its new premises is genuinely requiring a great deal of reshuffling. The philosophy of running a shopping centre has certainly been evolving, too. The process has of course been going on for some time now, but we know that enlarging the relaxation area, free of charge kids’ zones and additional amenities are the right direction to be going in. Our customers can now use a multi-storey car park with a parking space occupancy system as well as a car finding system. It has excellent transport links, a parking area for motorbikes and bicycles with video surveillance, free rental of trolleys adapted for carrying children and electronic tags that parents can pick up at the information point so that children can be easily found if they get lost. In our opinion it is the family that holds the greatest potential. And it was with the family in mind that we drew up our plans for re-organising the mall. We are subordinating all our marketing activities to this.

What are your plans for the centre in 2015?

As I’ve mentioned, the most significant event in 2015 will be the introduction of Jula to the mall. Work related to the preparation of the area of over 3,000 sqm is already underway. We have to move more than twenty tenants elsewhere, and we are making a number of changes to the passageways. Apart from that, the fit-out work is nearing completion on a 1,200 sqm Komfort store, which is to open in Q1. These are huge operations in terms of the logistics, but we are still planning to complete them by the end of H1