Xanadu

No, not the film – today’s company visit was to Xanadu mall, which is slightly south of Madrid and which is Spain’s largest shopping centre. It consists of both a leisure and retail area, with anchor tenants including Snow Zone, an indoor ski slope similar to the one in Dubai, and El Corte Ingles, Spain's largest department store chain, Zara, H&M and others – in all there are 20 anchor tenants in an area slightly smaller than Chadstone. We received a presentation from the property manager then had three hours to investigate the centre ourselves, which was not long enough! The key point I took away from this company visit was the granting of permission to build an express light rail from the centre of Madrid to Xanadu - obviously the regional government takes a very different view to investing in public transport infrastructure than the Victorian government does!!