OREANDA-NEWS. On 23 December 2008 was announced, that RIO retail and entertainment centre located at the junction of Dmitrovskoe Highway and the MKAD was unveiled on December 20. The second Moscow project by Tashir group of companies has the area of roughly 250,000 sq m, including the selling space of 105,000 sq m.

A press conference timed to the mall opening involved Andrey Ilyaev and Vitaly Efimkin, vise-presidents of Tashir, as well as an official from Colliers International. According to Mr Ilyaev, the total investment into the project exceeded USD 300 million.

Tashir expects RIO to be repaid not earlier than in three years. Its development was financed mostly from the company’s own funds, around 20 per cent was provided by Raiffeisen Bank.

The lease contracts covered 95 per cent of the selling space within RIO have already set up. The rest area will be leased for the price that is considerably higher than the leased areas had before. Approximately 40-50 per cent of the tenants proceed with the finishing work and will open their retail outlets in late December or January, some shops are already open.

According to Mr Efimkin, the daily attendance of RIO is expected to be roughly 50,000-60,000 visitors on weekdays and roughly 100,000 visitors on weekends.