The second largest shopping chain in the world to open its first store in Malaga

More than 15 years after its inauguration, the Malaga Nostrum shopping centre is reinventing itself. Although it was popular among local people for the first few years, the numbers using its shops and leisure facilities, which include several cinemas, have dropped as new commercial centres have opened in the city. Now, its owners have embarked upon a strategy to transform and relaunch it and an important part of that plan is the inclusion of the US chain Costco, in what will be its fifth shopping centre in Spain after those in Madrid, Getafe, Bilbao and Seville.

This hypermarket company, which operates like a club which you have to join in order to shop there, is considered the second largest shopping chain in the world after Walmart and ahead of Carrefour, which is the third biggest.

This project will involve a complete transformation of the Malaga Nostrum centre, and the first permits have already been issued by City Hall. The Costco store will be in a new building which will replace the one which currently houses the cinemas. The demolition of the leisure centre, the plans for which have been drawn up by architect Salvador Moreno Peralta, will cost over half a million euros and will take about six months to complete.

Costco will build its store in the space left after the demolition. Representatives of the company have already held a meeting with the mayor of Malaga, Francisco de la Torre, to discuss their plans for this new enterprise in the city.

Malaga Nostrum will not be left without any cinemas, because some (albeit smaller) are planned along with some shops in the building which housed the Conforama store. However, these plans will have to be approved before the works licence is granted, because the height of the building would need to be raised by one metre to make room for the cinemas.