A major mall opened in San Juan on Thursday, leading to as many as 3,000 new jobs in Puerto Rico.
The Mall of San Juan has Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom as anchor tenants. The retailers occupy 100,000 and 138,000 square feet of the 650,000 square foot mall. Both stores are the first in Puerto Rico for their respective retailers.
Mall of San Juan was built with an investment of $475 million.
"This new mall validates the confidence of investors and entrepreneurs to bet on Puerto Rico as a destination for economic development," Puerto Rico Gov. Alejandro García Padilla said during a visit to the mall.
The Mall of San Juan, in the Oriente neighborhood, is the second major mall in the city, though there are at least four others in its suburbs. Plaza Las Americas opened in 1968 in the Hato Rey Norte neighborhood of San Juan. It expanded in 2000 and now has 1.8 million square feet. Several of its retailers have done very well.
The developer of the Mall of San Juan, Taubman Properties, said on its web site: "The majority of the Mall of San Juan's shops and restaurants will be new to the market, bringing a critical mass of luxury, bridge, and better merchandise that does not exist on the island today."
"Puerto Rico has only five square feet of shopping area gross leasable area per capita versus 23 square feet in the U.S." and lacks high end stores, Taubman said.
