Sofia mayor Yordanka Fandukova has issued an order freezing construction of Sofia's Serdika Center shopping mall, currently being built on Sitnyakovo Boulevard, Bulgarian news agency BTA said on January 28 2010. City hall inspectors had discovered that the mall's builders had closed access to the nearby Popova Shapka street and had started using it as a construction site without having the proper permit to do so, BTA said. The mall's owners will be fined 10 000 leva, BTA said. So far, city hall inspectors have issued a total of 16 warnings and fines to the mall's builders for a number of offences, including closing lanes of Sitnyakovo Boulevard for construction purposes, BTA said. Sofia's Serdika Center shopping mall is scheduled to open on March 16 2010. The project is driven by ECE Project Management Bulgaria and Sparkassen Immobilien AG. The total investment for Serdika Center is 220 million euro. Serdika Center is designed to be one of the largest shopping malls in Sofia, encompassing 50 000 sq m of trade area and 35 000 sq m of office space. It will have more than 1600 parking spaces beneath and above the centre. The mall has already rented out close to 96 per cent of its commercial space. The mall will have a golden exterior, something unprecedented for Bulgaria. Significantly, it will not be marketed as a recreation centre, hence the lack of cinemas. There will be restaurants, but the main attraction of the mall will be thematic presentations to be conducted at specified intervals. The stores within the mall will have a common strategy, image and policy, offering high class goods and services. Up until this point 80 per cent of the stores and parcels within the mall have already been rented out, or 175 stores out of 220. Among the tenants will be Zara, Piccadilly, Technopolis, Beauty Zone and long-time partner Peek and Cloppenberg.