Shanghai Disneyland to Add China’s Biggest Outlet Mall

To further drive home the truth that you can’t have fun without buying something, Shanghai’s Disney resort will add the country’s largest outlet mall to its amusement offerings.

Shanghai Shendi Group, which operates the Shanghai International Tourism and Resort Zone in the city’s Pudong district announced this week that it had signed a joint venture agreement with US outlet developer Value Retail to build a luxury shopping mall next to the Shanghai Disney Resort.

Value Retail’s chairman Scott Malkin said the 50,000 square metre collection of luxury outlet stores called Shanghai Village will be “the most important tourism outlet shopping location in Asia.” The developer expects the mall to open in autumn 2015.

Teaming Up with An Outlet Mall Specialist

The joint venture with Value Retail represents something of a downsizing in ambitions by the Pudong government, which less than a year ago had announced plans for 133,000 square metre outlet mall in the same location.

Privately held Value Retail specialises in developing and operating luxury outlet shopping, and has several such developments in European cities including London, Milan, Munich, Dublin, Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Brussels, Antwerp, Cologne, Düsseldorf and Frankfurt. Value Retail’s Paris project is located next to the Disney park there.

Developers Leveraging Disney’s Tourism Appeal

The Shanghai Disney Resort is being built by Walt Disney Parks and Resorts and will be the first Disney park in mainland China. The resort is scheduled to open in December 15, 2015.

Already, the Pudong-based project is attracting a host of other developments in the area, including plans by Fosun International Ltd, the closely held Chinese conglomerate which acquired Club Med last year, to build a 7-star Atlantis resort hotel nearby.