OREANDA-NEWS. Mitsui Fudosan Co. will next year add roughly 30% extra floor space to two outlet malls in Chiba Prefecture and Hokkaido in light of brisk sales at both locations.

Mitsui Outlet Park Kisarazu in Chiba, which opened last April, will be expanded to around 36,000 sq. meters in the summer of 2014. The facility has generated sales of over 41 billion yen in its first year of operations, about 20-30% more than initially projected.

After the expansion, the number of tenants will increase by around 50 to a total of 220, the most among all outlet malls in greater Tokyo. The food court area, home to offshoots of some popular local restaurants, will also be expanded by around 50%.

Mitsui Outlet Park Sapporo Kita-Hiroshima, opened in April of 2010, will undergo its first expansion in the spring of 2014. The floor space will be increased to around 30,000 sq. meters, and the number of tenants will bumped up by 45 or so to around 175. In fiscal 2012, sales at the facility came to around 16 billion yen, up hundreds of millions of yen on the year.

Mitsui Fudosan operates 12 outlet malls in Japan. Their total sales in fiscal 2012 are estimated at more than 250 billion yen. Although existing-store sales decreased slightly on the year, sales have been strong since the start of 2013 thanks to bullish demand for high-priced items, according to the firm.

The firm hopes to increase the two sites' customer appeal by increasing the number of tenants, including name-brand stores from overseas and household good retailers.