Hamburg shopping centre set to be home to Thalia's new flagship store hit by yet another delay

The new shopping centre Westfield Hamburg-Überseequartier – one of the largest and most prestigious retail projects in Germany which will be home to the flagship store of Germany’s largest bookseller, Thalia – has announced yet another delay to its grand opening.

After the original date in April was postponed from late summer to October, due to technical problems, French developer and operator Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW) is now looking towards the end of the first quarter 2025.

In a statement, URW said that the delay “allows for additional time necessary to complete the commissioning phase of the centre,” including fire protection and safety-related systems. To avoid more tensions among the tenants who will now also miss out on the important holiday season, URW will set a new opening date in close consultation with gastronomic vendors and the more than 150 retailers – including Thalia – “in line with the spring retail calendar".

Westfield Hamburg-Überseequartier is at the heart of the northern city’s new urban quarter, HafenCity, one of Europe’s largest inner-city development projects based on sustainable guidelines.

The huge complex on the river Elbe combines an innovative concept for living, working, shopping, leisure and dining on over 500,000 sq metres across 14 interconnected buildings. It also includes three hotels with a total of 810 rooms and has its own cruise terminal.

Building works started in 2019. But the centre had been plagued with problems ever since, including the accidental death of five workmen 12 months ago. The investment volume had originally been estimated at €1.5bn. It has now risen to more than €2.2bn, including approximately €620m mainly for compensation payments for tenants, cost overruns and the prolonged construction period.

Book chain Thalia will occupy 1,700 sq metres on two floors in prime location. When c.e.o. Ingo Kretzschmar secured the space as the company’s new flagship store in March 2023, he announced that layout and optics will differ vastly from Thalia’s current shop fitting concept. Instead, the store will emphasise the maritime flair and tradition of Hamburg as a seafaring city. Customer service is a top priority, including 10 self-service checkout stations and an outdoor "click & collect" station which can be accessed 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Once opened, Thalia will operate 11 branches all over Hamburg.

Germany’s largest book chain continued its market domination in 2023/24. By the end of September, the Hagen-based company reported overall sales growth of 8% to €1.9bn in Germany, Austria and Switzerland where Thalia holds a 50% share in market leader Orell Füssli Thalia.

Without going into detail, Ingo Kretzschmar said in a statement that both store-based and online sales have been strong, “proving that our omni-channel strategy is sustainably successful”.

Kretzschmar stressed that sales were driven not only by popular categories such as YA, romance, fantasy and English-language titles. Equally important for him is the growing demand for non-book articles, led by toys.

Having reached a share in sales of 11%, Thalia plans to remodel its departments for children and teenagers into themed kid’s worlds with books and toys on an equal footing.