McArthurGlen Designer Outlet Parndorf to expand

Around 200 new jobs will be created when 20 to 25 new shops open at Parndorf’s McArthurGlen Designer Outlet next year.Thomas Reichenauer, company manager of the international shopping centre management group, said today (Fri): “We plan to invest between 20 and 25 million Euros. Twenty to 25 new shops will open on an additional 5,300 square metres in the middle of 2011.”The shopping centre – which offers cut-price designer fashions – opened with 30 stores in 1998 and features 150 shops today. Around 26 million people have gone shopping at the mall located in northern Burgenland fewer than 50 kilometres from Vienna and Slovak capital Bratislava.”An additional 200 people will join the 1,150 people currently working at our centre from next year,” Reichenauer explained.McArthurGlen’s other shopping centre in Austria opened near Salzburg last year. City centre shop managers had expressed fears that Salzburg’s bustling shopping streets would be deserted after the mall had started doing business. Studies have shown that more than a third of customers have been Salzburg residents, while 31 per cent have come from Germany.McArthurGlen’s 19 shopping centres across Europe have 75 million customers per year. The group had turnover of two billion Euros in its 2009/2010 business year that ended last month.Provincial political leaders will welcome news of newly created positions since Burgenland is Austria’s economically weakest province.