Hungary’s first smart mall wins international recognition

Etele Plaza has received HOF Awards 2022 in ’Best of the Best Retail Development’ category. A selected group of real estate leaders from the region’s voted as a jury in combination with votes from CIJ readers.

Etele Plaza, the Best of the Best Retail Development opened last September in Kelenföld, Hungary’s largest multimodal transport hub. The shopping centre’s main entrance welcomes visitors with the largest curtainwall structure in Hungary above the main entrance. The interiors including the fashionable corridors, an elegant lobby, attractive decor, and an outstanding food court directly connected to the green-roofed terraces has brought the latest generation of shopping centre design to Hungary. In addition to the shops, there is a wide range of food outlets, restaurants, cafés, fitness facilities, a children’s play area and services. Moreover, the Etele Cinema takes the movie experience to a new level in the shopping and entertainment centre.

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Hungary’s first smart plaza is able to provide a personalised shopping experience from the moment the customers leave their home, through its proprietary mobile app and cloud-based services. The next-generation shopping and entertainment centre not only helps visitors navigate and find the ideal parking space, but also leads them to the selected shops while offering tailor-made deals for each customer. Several benches with USB ports are available in the shopping centre, while at the information desk, a Hungarian-speaking Pepper robot will guide customers on their way.

 There will be 1,300 places in the car parks accessible from all directions, and almost 130 slots will include stations ready to charge electric cars.

The plaza has also introduced Ariadné to the public, a ground-breaking Hungarian invention to help the blind and visually impaired, developed by the engineers at Óbuda University.

“Etele Plaza has been recognised numerous times by the international real estate industry, but competing with the best and winning is always an extraordinary moment. We are truly honoured to receive this prestigious award. At Futureal, one of our priorities continues to be to create value in the commercial real estate sector and to implement exemplary projects such as Etele Plaza, the first smart plaza in Hungary”,

said Márk Balástyai, Project Director of Etele Plaza.

The HOF Awards attracts the leading and most influential real estate industry players from around the region. The Best of the Best Hall of Fame Awards is the climax of the CIJ Awards series, pitting the winning projects and companies from around Central & Eastern Europe against each other to determine who the Best of the Best really are. This year’s event featured entries from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia.

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