Two years after a fire destroyed the Portimão Retail Park, the DIY store AKI is opening a store in Portimão at Cruz da Parteira, Cabeço do Mocho.
Management promise a new image for the store which will open on Wednesday, 10 December aiming to capitalise on the Christmas market.
"The goal is to provide customers with a pleasant shopping experience, through the ease of location of products and full staffing," a company spokesman said, adding that there will be 35 employees, all recruited locally.
The new store represents "a return to a city where there was already a store, until two years ago, when it was destroyed by fire."
Mystery surrounds the future of the burnt out Portimão Retail Park which will cost around €20 million to rebuild but where nothing is happening. The 2012 fire destroyed outlets of Continent, Moviflor, Radio Popular, DeBorla, Staples, Aki and Decathlon.
The April 2013 explanation for the inactivity at the site was that money needs to be collected from various insurers, this was according to the president of the real estate company that manages the site.
"Our intention is to rebuild the commercial space as soon as possible, but for that we need about €20 million," said Rui Alpalhão last April.
Alpalhão is the boss of the property company FundBox which managed the retail park but "has no capital to start rebuilding, and is dependent on insurance payments from insurers. We are trying to maximise the compensation payable but it has not been an easy process because many insurers are involved, some of them foreign."
The Judicial Police concluded that the fire at the retail park in Portimão was as a result of an electrical fault. The fire rapidly spread to the neighbouring stores, destroying them all.
The Portimão site has been cleared of the twisted metal and debris left after the fire, but still is fenced off awaiting its fate.
Meanwhile the companies that had stores that were burnt out mostly have opened other outlets nearby.
The opening ceremony for the new AKI will take place at 17.30 hours on Wednesday 10 December, with the presence of Andrés Osto, general director of AKI, and Monica Almeida, director of Portimão Shop.
