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Auchan (Milanord 2)
Cinisello Balsamo (MI)

Opened: 2007
Vacant since: 2015
Original Construction Cost: € 150 million
Site Area: 70,000 m²
Total Indoor Space: approx. 45,000 m²
Estimated CO2e: 25,000 tonnes

Located in a municipality of approximately 75,000 residents on Milan's northern outskirts, the Auchan shopping center of Cinisello Balsamo occupied a site widely recognized as one of Italy's earliest shopping malls, originally developed in the early 1970s. Following a major redevelopment between 2003 and 2007, the complex reopened with around 100 retail units anchored by a French Auchan supermarket. The property occupies a chronically congested infrastructural node where several major highways converge, making accessibility both its greatest asset and one of its principal constraints.

Despite its strategic location, the shopping center closed in 2015 to make way for Milanord 2, an ambitious mixed-use redevelopment. Initially expected to open in 2022, the project has been repeatedly delayed. Promoters continue to envision a development comprising approximately 170,000 m² of new construction, around 300 retail and leisure activities, and a 41,000 m² open-air Sky Plaza. Yet years after demolition began, the site remains an unfinished construction landscape, slowed by administrative procedures, changing market conditions, and the logistical complexity of one of Milan's busiest infrastructural junctions.

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