Across Slovakia, the next square metre of retail is going up beside a road, well outside the big malls. While the public image of retail property is still defined by large shopping centres housing dozens of brands under one roof, the real growth in floor space has moved over the past two years to an entirely different format. Retail parks delivered record new supply in 2025, and a comparable wave is already under construction — almost entirely outside major shopping centres and outside Bratislava. This is neither a coincidence nor a temporary swing. It is a shift in format that is reshaping the economics of leasing, the geography of construction, and even what „occupied“ means for a landlord. This analysis is not concerned with how much retail Slovakia has or how weak the consumer is; it focuses on one question: why capital is choosing the smaller format.

A record that was not set in shopping centres

The defining figure of 2025 does not belong to shopping centres. Retail parks delivered record new supply of roughly 95,000 sqm, according to Cushman & Wakefield Slovakia (Market Outlook 2026), with a further 100,000 sqm or so planned for 2026. The end of the year confirmed the trend: in Q4 2025 the market added roughly another 38,000 sqm of leasable space specifically in the retail-park format, according to CBRE Slovakia (Retail Figures Q4 2025).

The pipeline does not stop there. Around 73,000 sqm of new retail space is under construction across 14 projects, the majority of it in western Slovakia, per CBRE Slovakia (relayed by Property Forum). A methodological note is warranted here: Cushman & Wakefield puts the figure closer to 80,000 sqm — but as supply projected for 2026, not volume under construction. The difference is not an error — it reflects a different definition, cut-off dates and rules for counting projects into the statistics — so this newsroom keeps both figures side by side rather than averaging them. What matters is the direction on which both consultancies agree: virtually all new retail construction in Slovakia today is flowing into the park format.

For a sense of scale, nine new retail parks with combined leasable area of over 61,000 sqm were due to open in 2025, including two formats above 10,000 sqm — OC Klokan in Žilina and Retail Park Podunajská brána (Cushman & Wakefield Slovakia). These are numbers that look modest against the world of large shopping centres, yet in aggregate they define where construction is going.

The economics that decide it: 15 versus 100 euros

If a single number explains the shift in format, it is the gap in rent. Prime rent in a shopping centre stands at around €100.00 per sqm per month, while in a retail park it is around €15.00 per sqm per month, according to Cushman & Wakefield Slovakia (Investment MarketBeat, Q3 2025). The difference is more than sixfold — and it is the core of the entire commercial logic.

For a tenant — particularly a grocery discounter, a drugstore, a sports, pet, footwear or home-goods retailer — the primary variable is not the prestige of the address but the cost of the turnover generated by each square metre. A roadside format with its own entrance, adjacent parking and a lower entry rate keeps operating costs at a level where the store is profitable even on a more cautious average basket. A shopping centre offers a concentrated flow of visitors, but at a price that a low-margin product range simply cannot sustain across a large floorplate.

The rent gap is mirrored on the developer’s side. A retail park is a single-storey, structurally simple building without costly common areas, escalators, extensive HVAC and fire-safety systems, or long internal promenades that generate cost while selling nothing themselves. Lower construction costs and a shorter build time mean the project reaches its return even at substantially lower rent per metre — and that is precisely what opens the format to towns and catchment areas a large shopping centre could never sustain.

Behind the rent gap lies a different pattern of customer behaviour that each format serves. A shopping centre thrives on a longer, experience-led visit with a higher share of discretionary purchases — apparel, electronics, dining. The retail park is built on the opposite: the short, repeated, purpose-driven visit, where the customer heads deliberately for one or two units. This model is more resilient in a cautious consumer environment because it rests on regular purchases of essential categories rather than on the mood for a larger outlay. That is exactly why a park can hold a steady flow of visitors even when households are postponing bigger purchases — and for a low-margin tenant, that predictability is precisely what decides whether a store is viable.

Why mostly the west, and why smaller towns

The geography of new construction is not random. If the majority of the roughly 73,000 sqm under construction is heading to western Slovakia (Cushman & Wakefield / Property Forum), it reflects two things at once: purchasing power concentrated around the Bratislava–Trnava axis, and the logic of filling in the network where a modern retail format within driving distance is still missing.

This is exactly where the park model has the advantage. A shopping centre needs a large catchment with sufficient population density and purchasing power to support dozens of tenants and a costly operation. A retail park can be sustained by a smaller market — a district town, a larger village, a suburb — because its operating equation is simpler. It does not need to draw visitors for a whole-day outing; it only needs to capture the regular, purpose-driven purchase on the way to or from work. Slovakia, meanwhile, already has the highest density of modern retail space in Central Europe — around 435 sqm per 1,000 inhabitants, per Cushman & Wakefield (as of February 2026) — which means the large agglomerations are essentially covered, and the room to grow lies precisely in the smaller catchments that the cheaper format can serve.

The result is a decentralisation of the retail map. Where the previous cycle built large centres in regional capitals, the current wave is thickening the network across second- and third-tier towns — exactly where the park’s economics work and the large centre’s do not.

Shopping centres are not in crisis — they have stopped growing by floor space

The shift in format is easily mistaken for a decline of shopping centres. The data does not support that reading. Tenant turnover in shopping centres rose by roughly 1% year over year in 2025, while footfall in Q4 2025 alone rose faster, by about 2% (roughly flat for the full year), according to CBRE Slovakia (Retail Figures Q4 2025). That is not the picture of a collapsing format — it is the picture of a format that has matured.

A mature market behaves differently from a growing one. Established shopping centres retain their visitor flow and modestly rising turnover, but their value is no longer created by adding more metres — it comes from working the tenant mix, from remodelling, from adding food and service offers, and from optimising existing floor space. Growth by floor space has moved to the parks simply because there is still uncovered demand there at lower risk. The two formats are therefore not competing for the same thing: the shopping centre defends its position on the quality of the experience and the concentration of brands, while the retail park expands on accessibility and cost efficiency.

For a shopping-centre landlord, the conclusion is clear: occupancy measured by the number of leased units has stopped being a sufficient measure of performance. What decides value is turnover per square metre and the ability to hold a tenant mix that generates it — not the mere filling of floor space.

What it means for investors and landlords

The shift in format has a direct bearing on capital allocation. Retail remains a strong asset class for investors in Slovakia — in the first half of 2025 it accounted for as much as 44% of all commercial real estate investment, with total investment volume reaching €418 million (up 170% year over year), according to CBRE Slovakia. The question, therefore, is not whether to invest in retail, but into which format.

A retail park offers a lower entry cost, a shorter build time, a simpler operation and tenants with a predictable, defensive product range (groceries, drugstore, discount) that holds visitor flow even in a more cautious consumer environment. A shopping centre offers higher rent per metre, but with higher operating costs, more demanding mix management and greater sensitivity to swings in discretionary spending. For a developer, the park is the route to a faster return in smaller towns; for the owner of an established centre, the task is to defend value by working the existing floor space, not by expanding it.

A shorter build time and a lower entry cost also carry value of their own in a more cautious cycle. A park can be built, leased and brought into operation faster than a large centre, which shortens the period during which capital is tied up without a return and reduces the project’s exposure to changing conditions between the decision and the opening. For a developer weighing risk, this is a substantial argument: the smaller format allows demand to be met in increments and expansion to be spread across several smaller, independently viable projects rather than a single large bet.

For a tenant, the shift in format is a source of negotiating leverage. With two functioning formats and record new park supply, an expanding chain has more siting options across different cost tiers — and can choose according to whether a given location and product range need the concentrated flow of a centre, or whether the purpose-driven accessibility of a park is enough.

Conclusions

The Slovak retail market in 2026 is not undergoing a crisis of format but a shift of it. A record of roughly 95,000 sqm of new retail-park supply in 2025, a further 100,000 sqm or so planned for 2026, and around 73,000 sqm under construction mostly in the west of the country all show where capital is flowing today: into the smaller, cheaper, faster-built roadside format. The decisive reason is economics — the sixfold gap between prime shopping-centre rent (around €100 per sqm per month) and retail-park rent (around €15 per sqm per month), together with lower construction costs, opens the format to smaller towns that a large centre cannot sustain. Shopping centres, meanwhile, are not failing — their turnover rose modestly and footfall rose slightly faster still — but they have left growth by floor space behind and now create value by working the tenant mix rather than by expanding. For the investor, the developer and the tenant alike, the lesson is the same: on Slovak retail in 2026, what decides the outcome is no longer how much floor space is occupied, but which format and which tenant mix generate turnover per square metre.

General information on commercial property markets. Not investment, tax or legal advice.