The Les Eléis shopping centre and Carrefour hypermarket opened in Cherbourg in north-western France

10-9-2013 — /EuropaWire/ — The Les Eléis shopping centre is celebrating its opening with an official inauguration ceremony on Friday 6 September in the presence of a number of local elected representatives.

The Les Eléis shopping centre is a place where people can come and meet and relax, and forms part of the overall project to modernise and extend the heart of the agglomeration – a project which is focused on developing the Cherbourg-Octeville peninsular and breathing new life into it from a social, economic and tourism perspective.

In a bid to meet the need for a wider selection of shopping facilities and a dynamic commercial hub, CHERBOURG INVEST – which brings together the Caisse des Dépôts, Patrimoine & Commerce and Carrefour Property, together with property developer CFA Grand Ouest (part of the Duval Property Finance Group) – developed a programme designed to transform the existing shopping centre. This has involved:
–    completely restructuring the existing arcade
–    adding a further 17,200 m² to the arcade so as to accommodate 50 new retail outlets
–    building a new car park with 1100 spaces – increasing capacity by 600
–    completely overhauling the building so that it now faces the town and the docks
–    creating new pedestrian and car access facilities

With its unusual architecture that nods to the surrounding landscape made up of pools of water and hills, Les Eléis is a generously-proportioned building that combines simplicity, freshness and a touch of poetry – facilities that are redolent of nearby coast of which the people of Cherbourg and Octeville are so proud.

With a catchment area of nearly 200,000 local residents, Les Eléis and its 50 extra stores have indisputably added to the urban area’s existing selection of shopping facilities, featuring a number of stores that cannot be found anywhere else in the region, such as H&M, Babou and Go Sport.

The Carrefour Hypermarket has been completely renovated: the sales areas have been redesigned and the “market” zone is now bigger. This renovation is a demonstration of the store’s willingness to keep up with the ways in which the shopping centre is changing and shore up its position as a major brand among the other retailers operating in the arcade.

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The Les Eléis shopping centre and Carrefour hypermarket opened in Cherbourg in north-western France