New entertainment push, Klépierre’s Kinepolis Lomme upgrade sharpens its mall play

French mall operator Klépierre is leaning on leisure to keep visitors coming, with a major upgrade of its Kinepolis cinema complex at Grand Littoral in Marseille aimed at turning shopping trips into longer, higher-spend outings.

Edited by ad hoc news Flagship & Bestseller Desk. Reviewed before publication on 06/15/2026 at 10:20 AM ET. Details in the imprint.

French retail real estate group Klépierre has been quietly reshaping its biggest shopping centers around leisure anchors, and the recent upgrade of the Kinepolis cinema complex at its Grand Littoral mall in Marseille gives a clear view of where the company wants to go. The refurbished multiplex is designed to lengthen dwell time, draw evening traffic and give the vast out-of-town complex a second life after regular store hours.

Cinema as a flagship anchor inside Klépierre’s Grand Littoral

Grand Littoral, a roughly 120,000-square-meter regional shopping destination on the northern edge of Marseille, has long been one of Klépierre’s most prominent properties, combining a hypermarket, large fashion anchors and a wide mix of mid-market chains under one roof. According to Klépierre’s latest asset overview, the center serves a catchment area of more than one million people across Marseille and nearby towns, and posts annual footfall that ranks among the group’s higher-traffic French locations. This scale makes the choice of anchors at Grand Littoral particularly important for shaping tenant mix and visitor behavior.

The Kinepolis multiplex, located as part of the mall’s leisure cluster, has been upgraded with more comfortable seating, refreshed lobby areas and a programming strategy that leans on French and international blockbusters, family releases and event screenings. While Klépierre does not operate the cinemas itself, it leases space to Kinepolis and uses the theater’s presence as a key part of the center’s identity, particularly for weekend and evening traffic when traditional fashion and specialty retailers are less of a draw. Management has repeatedly framed leisure anchors such as cinemas, bowling and family entertainment as crucial to making large malls feel relevant beyond pure shopping.

In France, Klépierre controls and operates more than 150 shopping centers across Europe, with a strong tilt toward large, dominant regional malls in metro areas such as Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Lille. Grand Littoral sits squarely in that strategy: it connects a Carrefour hypermarket with a broad mix of fashion, sports and home retailers, while the Kinepolis cinema creates an entertainment core that remains active long after most stores close. For tenants, that can translate into later restaurant covers, more impulse visits to snack kiosks and better visibility for brands that position themselves near the cinema’s entrance path.

The cinema upgrade at Grand Littoral also reflects a broader European mall trend. With pure-play e-commerce taking share in fashion and electronics, landlords are leaning on experiences that cannot easily be replicated online, from large-format cinemas to indoor adventure parks. In Klépierre’s case, leisure anchors like Kinepolis help diversify rental income and give the group more bargaining power when negotiating lease renewals or bringing in new brands that want to piggyback on evening and weekend traffic. For visitors, the seamless integration of parking, shopping, dining and entertainment in one complex aims to turn a simple movie outing into a half-day trip.

Within Klépierre’s portfolio, flagship properties such as Grand Littoral often receive the bulk of capital expenditure and leasing attention because they have the highest potential to attract international brands and to introduce new concepts. Cinemas and food courts tend to be the first beneficiaries of these investments, as they directly shape how long people stay in the asset. A more comfortable, visually updated cinema lobby can make the difference between a quick in-and-out visit and a longer stay that includes dinner and some window-shopping beforehand.

Against this backdrop, Kinepolis at Grand Littoral functions less as a standalone movie theater and more as a carefully chosen piece of Klépierre’s flagship strategy in southern France. It is designed to hold the evening economy within the mall perimeter, reduce leakage to city-center cinemas and give the landlord a talking point when presenting the asset to prospective tenants and lenders. As consumer habits shift and younger visitors look for social spaces rather than purely transactional shopping, such flagships are likely to remain at the center of how big listed mall owners defend and grow footfall.

Klépierre is one of Europe’s largest listed retail real estate companies and derives a substantial portion of its rental income from French and Southern European malls, with assets like Grand Littoral playing a visible role in investor presentations as examples of its flagship strategy. Shares of Klépierre (FR0000121964) are traded on Euronext Paris in euros, reflecting its status as a pan-European shopping center landlord.

Kinepolis Grand Littoral cinema in brief

• Product: Kinepolis cinema complex at Grand Littoral
• Manufacturer: Klépierre S.A.
• Category: Flagship/Bestseller retail-leisure asset
• Launch date: Existing multiplex, recently refurbished (date not disclosed)
• MSRP / Price: Not applicable (cinema operated by Kinepolis on leased space)
• Availability: Located within the Grand Littoral shopping center in Marseille, France
• Target audience: Families, young adults and moviegoers within the Marseille catchment area
• Key differentiator / USP: Acts as an evening and weekend anchor that extends dwell time and supports Klépierre’s flagship mall strategy

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